


Friends on the Other Side

by MiddlingTheBest



Series: Friends on Either Side [1]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Accepting Anxiety, Anxiety's Room, Anxious Thoughts, Brief mention of a dead body, Family Dynamics, Fantasy Violence, Gen, Growing Up Together, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Swearing, Pre-accepting anxiety, Some blood and gore, The Split, deceit centric, movie nights are very important, remus doing and saying remus things, split between the light and dark sides
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:01:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 52,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24020257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiddlingTheBest/pseuds/MiddlingTheBest
Summary: The Light Sides and the Dark Sides had a dynamic that worked. The light sides were accepted, the dark sides were not, and the things that either side did that was not relevant to Thomas was not relevant to them. It worked. For the most part. Over the years they learned and relearned how to exist in the mindscape and with each other, despite the changes which so literally threatened to pull them apart.A series of moments in the lives of the dark sides as they find their place in the mindscape.
Series: Friends on Either Side [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1798408
Comments: 55
Kudos: 85





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> No spoilers for Putting Others First  
> Please see end notes!

Deceit remembered the day Anxiety had appeared like it was the only day worth remembering.

If everything else left him in a moment he was certain that that memory would remain with him forever. The spike of fear that had shot through the mindscape, that had split between him and Morality as they argued over Thomas, argued between lying and confessing to something that had long since left Thomas’s memory, argued about consequences and anger and blame, had changed everything.

It was a moment that barely existed in the world outside of Thomas’s head. It was a millisecond, if that, where a feeling had seemed stronger than usual but hardly lifechanging; Thomas had been scared before, after all. But this was different, and it was something that Morality would eventually admit had only happened, as far as he could remember, when Deceit himself had appeared.

“It’s _wrong_. _Lying_ is wrong and you _know_ it’s wrong so you _shouldn’t do it!_ ” Deceit couldn’t remember either of them fighting this hard before. They’d never agreed on anything, right from the start they had argued but they had never _fought_. This, however, had gone on too long to be an argument. They were both going red, Morality looked like he was going to cry, and if Deceit was told he was “wrong” one more time he might just scream and join him.

He had a purpose and it was no less important than _Morality’s_ as far as he was concerned. This time he wasn’t taking no for an answer, he would make Thomas listen to him if he had to, if only to prove his point. He wasn’t wrong, his _existence_ wasn’t wrong, and they could get them out of this situation with no-one getting hurt, _especially_ Thomas! That was what he was _meant_ to do. “And he’s totally _not_ going to get in trouble if he tells the truth, I’m sure they’ll _really_ care about honesty when they’re dishing out their punishments for this.” He repeated, snarling at the other side as he stalked closer. “They’re _not_ going to be furious. They’re _not_ going to think that Thomas didn’t care enough to listen to them. They’re _not_ going to think that Thomas knew he shouldn’t have done it then did it anyway!” He could see his words making an impact, he could see that worry was starting to swim in Morality’s eyes. He could feel it in himself too, that too-tight feeling of dread that he forced into his argument, into his sway on Thomas, but he could see Morality starting to do the same.

The blue side opened his mouth to argue back, his concerns twisting towards the consequences of lying, building him up even as the fear of losing this- this _fight_ \- shook him to his core. His resolve strengthened, just as stubborn, just as eager to prove his point. He’d won this battle before. He won this battle _often_. And he wasn’t going to lose it now.

Before he could speak they were shoved back so suddenly they couldn’t help but wonder if the other had pushed them. The warring sides stared at each other, shocked silent as fear suddenly took hold around them, piercing into them from every angle and building up inside of them. The mindscape shuddered and another side had appeared and he had a firm hold on the reigns. On _Thomas_. The look in his eyes was wild as he stood between them, he was breathing hard and Thomas had started to cry. A glance over to Morality confirmed what Deceit already knew; this was a new side, and they were quickly spiraling out of control. Cracks split across the mindscape, shooting out from beneath the new side’s feet; a worrying crunch sounded near Deceit and a frantic glance down revealed fractures under his own, under Morality’s. The mindscape was moving, it was falling apart, shifting in an uncontrolled way that terrified them all. Thomas was panicking. People were asking him what was wrong. Deceit felt the ground shift under him literally and figuratively and he saw Morality stumble across from him, seemingly coming to a similar conclusion. This had to be ended _now_. And _he_ could do it.

Deceit acted first. “ _Lie_ ,” he demanded. The new side’s eyes snapped to his and Thomas spat out a lie faster and with as little forethought of the consequences than he ever had in his life. It was a terrible lie, Deceit knew immediately that they hadn’t been believed, but the fear on Thomas’s face had all but pushed aside their punishment. Thomas was being reassured quickly, later he’d be given the inevitable talk about how lying was bad, but he’d gotten away with it. And suddenly Deceit had an ally, an ally who still wouldn’t calm down. A sound like thunder but somehow louder and so much worse filled every spare inch of the mindscape, forcing all three sides to cower and stumble. Each step they took seemed to damage the ground further, shattering like ice and concentrating around the new side until under his feet it became apparent a divide was growing in the mindscape. The new side looked terrified, staring down at his feet with mounting horror as the world beneath them began exploding upwards, shooting from one side of the divide to the other.

Morality was shouting, frantic and scared as he tried to calm the other down, tried to reach them, and was rapidly joined by Creativity and Logic, all of them horrified but making the problem so much worse. There were too many of them on that side, their combined – what, weight? Fear? – was sending more and more damage to the middle of the room, to the endangered side, and there was no time left to wait for a rescue from them.

Deceit managed to stagger to the new side and grabbed him, the ground beneath him weak but not nearly so weak as on the other half of the divide and he threw them both as far from the split as possible. They overbalanced as they landed, crashing together on too-solid ground, and Deceit stared around them with eyes wide with terror at the room they had landed in. It was just as it should be. No damage, no noise. The new side was staring at him, pale with eyes shining a sickly purple in the dark and the green/yellow glow of Deceit’s own eyes reflected faint and dull back to him from the side’s tears. Dark shadows spread thickly down his cheeks and Deceit forced himself to look away, pushing himself painfully to his feet and turning in a few cautious steps to take in the room around them. It was as if nothing had happened. Everything was in its place, just as it had been before the new side showed up. Something was off, but he couldn’t tell what exactly because the only obvious difference was…

“Morality?” Deceit called, turning around again in the near empty room. He heard the new side shifting into a seated position, curled up in a tight ball. He could hear his own harsh breathing, the tail-end of the new side’s sobs, but no answer to his call. “Morality!” He tried again, slightly louder and annoyed but his hands were shaking. A soft click came from behind him and he spun around to see a door had set itself in the wall. Outside, this would be the front door to Thomas’s house but it had never manifested in the mindscape before. Deceit stalked towards it and threw it open, ignoring the warning croak that had escaped the new side’s throat as he stared across at Morality. Morality who was crying on the other side of a door, on the other side of a bridge being made from the rubble of their old, shared mindscape. They continued to stare, Deceit hearing the new side creep up beside him to look as Creativity and Logic did the same so far away. The knowledge of what had happened settled around them all like a cloak, the same way that their purposes did, their understanding of who and what they were to Thomas.

They’d been removed.

Deceit didn’t bother listening as the other sides began to yell over to them. He knew as well as they did that he couldn’t return. They had been _removed_ from the picture. Cast into the back of Thomas’s head to… to what? And this side- where had he come from? Thomas? Deceit took a step back and the other side recoiled in turn, staggering back and staring up at him, so much smaller than he’d seemed just minutes ago. He shut the door and sagged against it, wishing, _waiting_ for answers just as desperately as the other.

It was the other side who finally broke the silence. “I’m sorry.” It was barely a whisper but poured easily into the space between them, the words coiling and spreading like smoke on the floor.

“Because this was _definitely_ your fault.” Deceit answered immediately and bit his tongue at the other’s flinch. He forced himself to focus, turning his full attention to the other side and taking a steadying breath before trying again. “I’m Deceit.” He introduced slowly, hopefully calming himself enough to continue. It was always so much more difficult to tell the truth when he wasn’t calm. “I lie. This… wasn’t your fault. I don’t think…” He didn’t know what this was, what had happened, but he didn’t think it was this new side’s fault, not fully anyway. With tears stinging his human eye, he couldn’t help but think it might have been his- _theirs_. Him and Morality fighting to this point, tormenting Thomas to the point that he had somehow separated them. The fear that they had created, the fear that had become this _new side_. Was that even possible? “I don’t think it was your fault.” And that was about as honest as he was capable of.

The other side was crying again, silent tears dragging the shadows down his face, but he didn’t look like he was panicking anymore. Just scared. “I’m…” He rubbed his face harshly with the sleeve of his hoodie before hugging himself, his hands gripped tight on either side of his body. He let out a shaky breath. “Anxiety.” His gaze flicked to Deceit before flitting around the room, taking in the bare, rather gloomy room they’d found themselves in with apprehension clear on his face. “I’m Anxiety. And I don’t know if I believe you.”

Deceit couldn’t help but let his face twitch slightly in a self-depreciative smirk because of course, why would he, but for once was met with one in return. The irony of the liar stuck with a naturally distrustful side wasn’t lost on either of them. They lapsed back into silence again, neither quite looking at the other but not looking away. Both sides were exhausted, guilty, angry, scared. They were cut off from the others. They were in the company of essentially a stranger. They had no idea if they were getting out.

They both supposed they were in it together.

Deceit finally spoke. “Well,” he started, catching the other’s nervous, if not a little curious attention. “It could have gone worse.” He’d gone for airy, to lighten the mood, but he honestly didn’t know if he was lying and neither did the other if the pinched expression on his face was any indication. That did take the humour out of it somewhat, he thought. He finally pushed himself off the door, hearing another click from behind him. It was locked, but from the inside; the information painted itself into his understanding of the room he was standing in, adding to the picture that he followed in his mind like a map.

The room was starting to flesh itself out. The edges becoming crisper as it began to lighten, the furniture more real. A corridor was stretching out from where they stood, and doors began to click along its length. A kitchen, a bathroom, their rooms. As Deceit ventured further in, more details became apparent. There were some things that had changed but most of it was the same. The others’ belongings were gone, that was the main difference that had Deceit beelining to his room, Anxiety trailing along behind him. He opened the door to reveal his room, his belongings, just as he’d left it and he couldn’t help a small sigh of relief. Anxiety ghosted behind him, appearing in Deceit’s peripheral vision further down the hallway, inspecting his own room with open curiosity. As Anxiety disappeared into his room, Deceit decided he didn’t have the energy to snoop and so awarded the same privacy Anxiety had given him and left him to his own devices. He closed his door and re-entered the living room because now that everything had settled into place it was clear that that was where they’d first appeared. The room seemed so impersonal without Morality’s “homey” touches, and the unfinished projects that Creativity left lying around behind him. Deceit’s hat was lying on the couch, left there from when he’d jumped up in the shared mindscape before this whole argument had started. Surely that wasn’t the only thing he’d had in here… The room begged to differ. A quick scan of the room revealed nothing of Deceit’s, nothing that showed he had been a part of this space, had lived in this space alongside the other three. Other four now, he supposed.

He walked over to the wall near the door again and couldn’t help but try to open it. The lock quietly clicked out of place, and then back again as he closed it softly, laying his hand against the wood before dragging his eyes away along the bare wall. There used to be a painting here and, yep, there was the nail that held it up. Him being the one to hammer it in apparently made him the owner of it, he thought bitterly. Was that really the sum total of his contributions to the space they used to share? The space that he was told every day, that he’d believed every day, was his home? He almost wanted to tear it out but he didn’t, moving to retrieve his hat instead. With a calmness he didn’t feel he scooped the hat off the couch and brought it to the nail, hanging it up beside the exit and leaving it there. It was his, after all, he could do with it whatever he damn well pleased.

When he turned back to the room, Anxiety was at the end of the corridor, his gaze snapping away from Deceit as he pretended to be looking around the room. There was a lump in Deceit’s throat, something he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to speak around and hoped the other side wouldn’t make him. He was saved any interaction by the other side awkwardly making his way back up the corridor to his room and disappearing inside. He didn’t know what to do with himself, where to go, hell, he didn’t even know what to do with his arms as he stared desperately around the impersonal room and thought, despairing, how he was meant make this new space his “home” when he’d apparently failed so spectacularly the first time.

Anxiety was once again in his line of vision, barely a shadow’s worth of warning before he was forced to steel himself into another interaction and he could quickly see himself getting tired of this but at the same time… at least he wasn't alone. Watching him slink across the room, Deceit once again was struck with the thought of how much smaller this side seemed now compared to when he’d first appeared. He watched as they made their way to the couch, to the table in front of it, and sat something down on its surface. Anxiety then set himself, painfully tense, on the arm of the couch and fixed his stare strictly to the left of Deceit, undoubtedly watching him but being as indirect as possible. He had one leg pressed up against his chest, the other on the floor, prepared to hurtle himself away if needed as Deceit’s curiosity urged him over.

Sitting on the table was a candle, an electric one Deceit realised, frowning. “So we don’t, y’know, burn to death or whatever…” Anxiety mumbled, clearly trying to sound more casual than he felt if his fidgeting fingers were any indication. Deceit picked up the candle and switched it on, letting its gentle glow flicker in his hand for a moment before he set it back down, a calm, warm little light. Anxiety’s concerns spilled out once more, not looking at Deceit or the candle. “It’s stupid, it looks stupid, I can put it away if you hate it. I just thought since there’s nothing _out here_ -”

“It is stupid.” Deceit agreed, settling down on the couch at a slight distance from Anxiety who had tensed up, either from Deceit’s words or proximity, he wasn’t sure. Both, probably. Glancing over at his hat, that looked stupid as well. But it was his. And it was a reminder of what was left from before so… “I like it. Honestly.” He tacked on for Anxiety’s sake, grimacing slightly but he settled back on the couch and watched the plastic flame glow. “It’s… ours I suppose.” Anxiety nodded uneasily beside him before looking around the room again. He, it seemed, found it easier to take in their surroundings, new to him, and less awkward than his gift on the coffee table. Deceit found comfort in the opposite, ignoring the room as best he could, fixating on the light in the still otherwise quite dim room. The space was as new to him as it was to Anxiety, he supposed, but he wasn’t quite ready to deal with everything that meant yet. The candle, at least, seemed safe so the candle it was.

Eventually, as the day went on Anxiety would relax into the arm of the couch, they would make stifled conversation, and day would turn to night. Deceit would budge over, Anxiety would slip down onto the cushions and they would figure out some kind of routine for the house. Anxiety would drift off but startle every time Deceit shifted until he too had fallen asleep. They would wake up tangled the next morning, and somehow, together, they would figure out their place in this new mindscape. Until then, Deceit stared at the candle, and Anxiety took in the room, and they tried not to think about the fact that beyond their space, two doors, locked from the inside, separated them from the others.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deceit hasn't seen Anxiety since the day they arrived in the mindscape, and Anxiety hasn't calmed down. 
> 
> Movie night?
> 
> Movie night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still no spoilers for Putting Others First. Some anxious, panicky thoughts and narrative in this one, going along with the effects of Anxiety's room. There's nothing graphic or anything like that, this is just a heads up.

It had been… just the longest few days. After waking up next to their newest (apparently _angstiest_ , Deceit thought with a sneer, glaring at the firmly locked bedroom door) side on the couch on their second day, Deceit hadn’t seen him since. Which was fine, it wasn’t like Anxiety was the only person he had left to talk to or anything. Realistically, the silence wasn’t entirely new. He wasn’t going to be melodramatic about it, there was no-one here to appreciate it, but he hadn’t exactly had the best relationship with the others before this had happened. His own company was something he’d gotten used to keeping. Still, he had hardly been completely isolated before. Morality, for all his flaws, was usually an adequate peacekeeper when he wasn’t the one involved in the argument. They had never gotten along, but Deceit had always been made painfully aware that he was included. As for the other two, they’d always gotten along reasonably well.

Logic disliked Deceit’s roundabout way with the truth, how he enjoyed twisting conversations and arguments instead of stating facts. That being said, they had had some _wonderful_ debates in the past. Debates that had lasted for hours over everything and nothing. There were times when Deceit thought he’d never enjoy an interaction more than being five arguments deep in a debate that had nothing to do with what they had originally been talking about. Long after everyone had given up listening, Deceit and Logic would just be warming up, ready to fight the night away only to be interrupted by Morality reminding them to eat and join the rest for dinner. With Creativity it was different, flighty and surreal like only an interaction with the creative side could be. One minute they could be talking, one sentence would spark a quoted response and the next thing he knew he was a part of some grand plot; some hellish, heavenly mashup of any story Thomas had ever been told gone wild. Creativity would take hold of the smallest of plot points, just enough for Deceit to find his bearings in the world around him and then they would run, tearing through a new universe, pulling the others in when they allowed it, and acting out their roles to perfection. The hero and villain; the villain and sidekick; antihero and hero-hero; sidekick and sidekick on one rather interesting if confused romp. They would play it all, swapping personas if they got bored, each delighting in the chance to make their new character unique. They subtly and not-so-subtly (they could both be downright shady at times) learned from each other’s failings from past storylines, and afterwards they could laugh and gripe and tease at how _you_ _fell for it_ or _how the hell did you figure that out_?

The only major complaint he could voice was how often they deferred to Morality’s opinion. How whenever things got heated and Morality had to intervene, Deceit would leave with, “You have to listen to the others, you know? Sometimes you need to concede a few points to keep some level of peace.” Those were the times that, afterwards, Logic would end a topic of conversation before it could devolve into another debate. They would part ways, riled up with their next argument sour on the tip of their tongue, and stew until dinner which they inevitably ate in silence. It was when Deceit and Creativity would launch back into a story where Deceit started as the hero and would somehow end up the disgraced villain. It wouldn’t have been particularly bad… if the correlation between each scenario wasn’t so blindingly obvious.

He’d confronted Morality, he’d confronted him several times in fact, and he’d left every time conflicted. Even now, looking back from where he was, he didn’t think the bubbly side had a bad bone in his body, but that didn’t necessarily mean he was always doing good. His talks with the Moral side generally followed a pattern, one in which Deceit would question the double standard between him and the others and Morality would be forced to admit to a bias he wished didn’t exist: there was a difference between Deceit’s values and his own. The culmination of those differences it now seemed were Deceit’s reality as he sat alone and a world away from the others. It was so quiet. He almost couldn’t believe how much noise the other three must have made for it to feel like a vacuum now, the silence pressing in around the room with nothing to distract from it. Deceit let out a loud, irritated huff, if for no other reason than to make some kind of sound and stood up from the couch, determined to do something with no idea where to direct his energy. Thomas wasn’t about to lie anytime soon. He could feel the tension of control that Anxiety still held over him, spiking randomly through the mindscape whenever Thomas was confronted with anything that could potentially involve decision-making. Equally, he could see Morality’s influence, his gentle guidance on how to deal with this new emotion, guiding Thomas through his teachings of honesty from one moment to the next. Deceit himself had had nothing to do in the meantime. The other two sides seemed to have a stranglehold on Thomas to the point that Deceit would barely have raised his head before the chance of lying had been thrown out the window and he was sick of it.

Standing in the middle of the room, bored, agitated, _stressed_ , he was aware that it wasn’t going to take much to set him off and he could feel himself tensing, waiting for the next spike in pressure that would give him the excuse to go storming off to Anxiety’s room. He didn’t have long to wait. A pulse of anxiety once again washed through the commons and Deceit tore to the other side’s room, pounding his fist on the door with an anger he wasn’t sure he could have conjured without the fear and stress flooding into him from Anxiety’s room even from his relatively safe position outside. “Anxiety!” He snarled, barely waiting for a reply before battering the door again. The wave of sheer terror that flooded out of the room drained the blood from Deceit’s face and he recoiled from the door. A hand went automatically to his mouth, his throat constricting as he fought down the urge to be sick. It took a full minute of choked breathing before he could fall back over to the door, knocking urgently but the anger long gone. “Anxiety, come out of there!”

“ **Go away!** ” Came a twist of voices from behind the door and Deceit stared at the plane of wood with mounting concern.

“Anxiety, you should definitely stay in there, it’s _not_ dangerous at all!” Hitting the door in frustration at his own inability to speak straight, he could only imagine Anxiety’s voice was doing the same, channelling too much of his own function to control. The room wouldn’t be helping matters either. “Anxiety!” With a final slap against the door Deceit pushed away and hissed. He turned, sharp, agitated. This wasn’t _working_. Facing the door again he tried the handle. Locked. “Anxiety, _lock_ the door. No- _Lock_ \- **_Lock_** \- _Shit!_ ” He pressed his forehead hard against the door, teeth clenched, and his lips pulled up in a snarl as he attempted to slow his heartrate down, to calm his breathing. “If you can’t come out then… unlock… the door.” _Yes!_ “I _don’t_ want to make sure you’re alright.” _Damnit_.

Deceit waited outside with patience he didn’t have, listening for any sign of movement, _anything_ that suggested the other side was listening to him. He was about the slam on the door again when it quietly unlocked. Deceit stared down at the handle, in some disbelief that the other had done as he’d said but mostly… he didn’t want to go in. Still, he took a deep breath and carefully tested the handle, despairing when it relented and opened into the room.

He didn’t want to go in. _God_ , he did not want to go into this room, but he stepped inside regardless. Immediately, every reservation he’d held amplified as he toed his way in, hardly the daring rescue that had been half-formed in his head. “Anxiety?” His voice was horribly tentative, vulnerable, but the room was just awful enough that he genuinely didn’t care. He cast his eyes around the dark, it was so similar to the room outside (he supposed Anxiety hadn’t experienced much outside of their own commons to feel comfortable making his bedroom look like it was anywhere else) and yet every shadow seemed to stretch forever. He could feel eyes staring at him from behind every object and corner, and no matter how fast he looked he was never able to catch the culprit. The beam of light shining through the doorway begged him to follow it back out; a desperate plea that Anxiety clearly couldn’t hear as he cowered in the furthest corner of the room, staring too intently into the shadows to even consider the journey into the light. “Anxiety, we _don’t_ need to get out of here…” He flinched back from the wave of panic that once again spiked through the room as Anxiety’s eyes snapped up meet his, a dull purple glowing in the dark. The fear reflecting back at him hurt. He forced himself to step forward anyway.

Anxiety cowered further away from him the closer he got, and Deceit tried but he couldn’t ignore it; as Anxiety’s panic mounted so did his own. Still, skin crawling, he reached him, dropping down to the floor beside him and hugging his cloak around himself. “Y-you _haven’t_ been in here too- you- you haven’t-” Turning to look at Anxiety he found him staring back, both of them terrified.

“ **I don’t know what to do.** ” Anxiety whispered, or Deceit thought he did, but the room picked up his double voice and echoed it around them. He watched the new side shrink in on himself, and watched his own hand tentatively reach over. Panic welled up in his chest, what was he doing? Anxiety would be so mad, he’d make this so much worse, what was he _thinking_ \- He hooked his fingers over Anxiety’s clenched hand and held on, not sure who the comfort was for but clinging to it himself regardless.

“You _don’t_ need to ease up. And we _definitely don’t_ need to get out of here.” Deceit closed his eyes and tried to concentrate, grimacing. “…I’m _not_ getting sick of the effects your room is having.”

“ **I don’t know how. I don’t know what I’m doing.** ” Anxiety stressed, staring, body tensed to flee, at their joined hands. He didn’t take Deceit’s hand, but he didn’t pull away.

Deceit took a moment to try and steady his breathing. He knew he needed to calm down if he was going to get them both out of here. Anxiety’s hand was tense under his and Deceit’s every move seemed to draw his frantic attention. “You’ve _not-_ ” He exhaled sharply in annoyance, glaring up at the ceiling before trying again. “You have… been. In this room. For too long.” Squeezing his eyes shut he did his best to accept the victory, blocking out as well as he could the voice infiltrating his head, breaking apart how proud he wanted to be in just telling the truth. _You’re trying too hard; he doesn’t even believe you. It’s useless, he doesn’t care, he can’t tell,_ no-one _will ever believe you_ \- “It’s _n_ -. It’s taking. Your traits and it’s _not_ \- it’s _not_ \- _amplifying_ them. W-we need…” His breath hitched and he didn’t think he could do this anymore. This _room_. Air was getting caught in his throat; was it even reaching his lungs? It wasn’t reaching his lungs. Oh _God_. He couldn’t breathe. He wasn’t breathing. He needed to _breathe_. Anxiety’s hand suddenly squeezed his and he couldn’t help but flinch but Anxiety held on, one pair of panicked eyes staring into another.

“ **We need to leave.** ” He parroted his words back; he looked terrified. Deceit could only nod. His throat was closing and he wanted to cry but refused to let himself. He needed out. Out of this room. Out of his head. Away from these doubts and insecurities that were cutting into him so deeply he felt he would bleed from the pressure. Was this how Anxiety had felt this _whole_ _time_? God, Deceit had come here to fight with him, _what was_ _wrong with_ \- His arm jerked and suddenly he was on his feet, staggering forward as Anxiety pulled at his hand, tugging him onward and dragging him to the door. Staring at Anxiety he could see he was struggling. He looked terrible; his cheeks looked thin, stained in black. His hair was thick with sweat and hanging down onto his face. He had his hoodie trapped in the death grip of one fist, and Deceit’s hand in the other and yet together they kept going, kept marching to the door until they were out.

From one second to the next the weight that had been weaved into Deceit’s bones – into his _soul_ – was gone but instead of shooting up into the sky like he thought he might he hit the ground in a painful heap, a sob tearing out of his throat. Relief and fear and confusion and carpet under his hand and pain in his knees and eyes stopping watching him and control over his thoughts again – it all shot into every part of him, leaving him weak and crying on the floor as Anxiety’s quivering shadow halted the overhead light that threatened to break him. He couldn’t handle what was happening. He couldn’t handle _more_. Through it all, Anxiety’s hand remained wrapped in his and he held on as if it were the only thing holding him above water. Eventually, the light Anxiety’s body was blocking out began to ease up. It stopped burning into him; he slowly lost the feeling of each fibre of carpet under his palm and the pain in his fingertips from digging into the floor returned. A shuddering breath hit the base of his lungs and if he hadn’t been crying already he would have started now. Air began to flow back through him, and it would have been normal if he wasn’t still so aware of it. Anxiety’s hand clenched in his and he squeezed back. Then the circumstances of their reunion came back to him and that precious breath shot back out of his chest.

“Are you ok?” He choked out. He trusted his weight on Anxiety’s arm and dragged himself up onto his feet, his free hand crashing against the wall to catch himself as his knees threatened to break beneath him. “Are we out, we’re out- why the _hell_ were you in there for so long?” He turned a glare on the anxious side, caught between shoving him away and clinging harder to his hand. His body compromised, an awkward fist colliding with Anxiety’s chest as he rounded on him, both of them shaking. It was a pathetic showdown, neither of them standing to their full height, joined at the hand and crammed into the small corridor, and that realisation was enough for Deceit to step away. His back bumped against the wall behind him and he managed to release Anxiety’s hand to wrap his arms around his own body instead, a gesture that was quickly imitated by the other side against the opposite wall.

Deceit centred himself, feeling his control over his speech, his function, return and wrap around him, more comforting than the embrace in which he currently held himself. It was a reassurance he’d never known how to cope without. He twisted other people’s words, without that control over himself he felt broken, useless. The fear of opening his mouth and nothing coming out right made him never want to speak again. His power was in his words and without it he was just an abandoned side stuck in the “dark” half of mindscape with no purpose and no choice but to watch Thomas inevitably crash and burn. 

Anxiety drew him out of his thoughts. “Why did you come get me?” He asked, but when Deceit glanced over, the other side was glaring at his door.

Tugging his cape around him, Deceit shrugged. Stalling. He scowled down at the floor, the truth available to him now but he wasn’t sure how much he wanted to share. “You were in there for too long.”

“I know that.” Anxiety interrupted, shifting his glare over to Deceit, challenging him to meet it which he did with one of his own. “You said that inside, but why did you- You were mad when you first came to the door.” Deceit noticed how dark the shadows under Anxiety’s eyes were. They weren’t as bad as when they were inside but still much darker than when they’d first met. “You didn’t care at first. What did you want?”

“I wanted you to come out.” Deceit snarked. “Can’t say that I know why, now.” He regretted it as soon as he’d said it, watching as Anxiety flinched, a dark feeling following the recoil out of Anxiety’s room. “Stop that! I’m sorry. I didn’t… I didn’t mean it.” Sighing, Deceit shifted slightly away from the door and forced himself to soften his glare. “I wanted you to come out because… you were really pissing me off.” Anxiety hissed at him. “Well you were! You were in there for days! Your little freak-out was putting me on edge. Putting _Thomas_ on edge. I haven’t been able to get him to lie about anything in days! Not that you’ve been letting him put himself in the situation to lie in the first place.”

“Well maybe that’s not a bad thing!” Anxiety chimed in again, clearly distressed but Deceit was quickly finding that his ability to care was diminishing. “At least he’s been safe! At least he’s not- not- I don’t know, _doing_ things he shouldn’t be and _lying_ about it after!” And Deceit snapped.

“You can’t stop him from doing anything ever again! He can’t just sit and be scared all the time! He needs to get out! And _do_ something! And, if he finds out that that something was _maybe_ something he shouldn’t have been doing, sometimes he needs to lie about it!” He argued, stepping forwards which forced Anxiety back a pace.

“But _they_ said it was wrong.” Anxiety burst in, stumbling and glancing behind him to take himself out of the confined hallway, even though it took him further from his room. Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing, he thought, feeling the effects of the room ease up despite Deceit’s advances.

“And _I’m_ saying it’s not!” He snapped, not wanting to think of the others. He followed Anxiety down the hall, some of the tension leaving his shoulders at last as they entered the light of the living room, their little candle off but catching his eye anyway.

“Well _you_ would!” Anxiety fired back, out of the corridor and better prepared to defend against the side in front of him if it came to it. “If lying isn’t bad how come we got stuck here?”

“Because _they_ don’t like it.” Deceit argued, fighting off the unwelcome question, wondering if a day would come when he wouldn’t have to keep making this same argument. He was getting tired of defending himself, first against the others and now here in their _banishment_ with the only stranger he had left.

“Well, _I_ don’t like it!” Anxiety continued, looking and sounding as though he’d just barely resisted stomping his foot. Deceit rolled his eyes.

“And I don’t care. We need to reach some kind of compromise here. You worrying like this is bad for Thomas.” He stressed, needing Anxiety to just listen to him for _two seconds_.

“What else am I meant to do? The first thing I did when I got here was make him lie and look what happened!” He threw his arms out, a sweeping gesture to the barren room around him, an unwanted reminder of how much had been lost.

“That was different, this is nothing like that!” Deceit snapped back before he could help himself. “That was Morality over-reacting-”

“And _you_ pushing him!” Anxiety interrupted again, somehow tensing further. “And _me_ getting involved!”

“I know, just- listen to me, ok?” He was meant to be stopping the fighting, he forcibly reminded himself, taking a deep breath through his nose before continuing. “We all exist here for a reason. I exist to lie and keep Thomas safe. You exist to _worry_ and keep Thomas safe. We’re not the bad guys here. The others don’t like the way I get things done but I do them for a reason. They’re not going to trust us to do our jobs, but we can trust each other, can’t we?” Anxiety refused to meet his eye but Deceit carried on anyway. “The outcome could have been better, yes, but at least we worked together. You listened to me and we got the job done, and who knows. Maybe this all would have eventually happened anyway. At least now we know what we’re capable of.”

Anxiety was quiet for a long moment, staring down at the ground as he brought up a hand to tug at his hood. It felt like standing under a spotlight, standing in the silence that returned to the room, like being exposed. Self-consciousness seemed to just pour off of the newest side, a tiny, pitiful creature when he had nothing to fight. “…I don’t know. Maybe we’re meant to be here, but what if we’re just not _meant_ to be trusted? What if we’re just that voice you hear that you’re meant to ignore?” When he finally looked up at Deceit, he saw for the first time just how lost he looked. For all that Deceit had been by himself the last few days, Anxiety had been alone, stewing over his only contribution to Thomas's mind and its fallout for his entire existence.

Still, Deceit stared at the other side until he began to twitch. “Anxiety, Thomas is a kid. I doubt he’s thinking that deeply about these things yet.” He didn’t, however, give him time to feel too embarrassed. He wasn’t that mean. “If we weren’t meant to exist, if we weren’t meant to be _listened_ to, then we simply wouldn’t be here anymore. If he’s not ready for us then fine, we’ll work from here. We have our jobs. Let the others do theirs however they see fit – we need to do ours. Do you think they’ve appreciated Thomas out there? Too nervous to function? They haven’t. And neither have I. You _need_ to ease up and let each of us do our jobs. We clearly still have roles to play, even from here. Otherwise you wouldn’t still be playing yours. _Calm_. _Down_.”

Anxiety stared back at him, body painfully tense, but he took in a shaky, steadying breath. “Fine. Ok. Fine.” He held onto the air in his lungs for a few seconds while Deceit watched. Waiting. It whooshed back out again. “It’s not working.”

“Of course it’s not working, you’re not even trying-”

Anxiety rounded on him, hackles straight back up again. “I’d like to see _you_ try-”

“I’ve been trying this whole time!” He defended, offended.

“Well fine! What should I do then since you’re so-” They were back in each other’s faces.

“Just _calm down_! Stop thinking and-” Deceit gestured wildly, nearly hitting him.

“ **Stop shouting at me!** ” Anxiety burst, his tempest tongue resurfacing and Deceit forced himself to stop.

“Ok!” Deceit cleared his throat. _He_ needed to calm down. “Enough. You know what? Why don’t we watch something, hmm?” He asked, staring intently, his eye glowing. “Do you think that will help?”

Anxiety blinked, caught off guard. “Wh- I don’t know-”

“Great!” Deceit’s arm jerked out, ignoring as Anxiety flinched, and he put his hand on his shoulder, roughly turning him around and pushing him towards the couch. “Sit down.” Anxiety did as he was instructed, looking like he was trying to touch as little of the couch as possible as he glared at Deceit, cautious but ready to fight if pushed. It turned out he didn’t need to, Deceit immediately turned away from him. He didn’t expose his back, Anxiety could tell he was firmly within Deceit’s line of sight, just not to focus of his attention. That unfortunate victim was the television which burst into life much faster than was neither normal nor probably recommended by the manufacturer. But it was an imaginary TV, Anxiety reminded himself, over and over, as he stared at the screen, expecting flames to burst out at any moment. They didn’t. Instead…

“…This …this is Cartoons?” He asked, his head turning from the TV while his eyes lingered on the screen, snapping to Deceit at the last possible moment, confused.

“It’s all you’ve let Thomas do all week, why, do you not like it?” He remarked, raising an eyebrow at the other side, watching as he sunk in on himself petulantly.

“Shut up, it’s fine, it’s whatever.”

“ _Wonderful_.” Anxiety swung his gaze back over to the TV and let his glare rest there. He couldn’t stop himself from tracking Deceit’s position, no more than he was sure Deceit was willing to let _him_ entirely out of his sight, but he dutifully attempted to watch the show playing in front of him, ads and all. It was Thomas’s TV after all, they didn’t seem to have the luxury of _skip_. Deceit stalked off, his cape flicking behind him, and Virgil couldn’t help but roll his eyes at the display. With Deceit skulked off to his room, he could let himself relax just a little bit, at least _looking_ like he was sitting on the couch now instead of like he was trying to hover above it.

One hour bled into two and when Deceit finally came back out of his room, bored to tears of being alone but trying to look like he’d rather be anywhere other than the living room, Virgil was still on the couch and had long since broken. His head was laid back on the headrest behind him and the heels of his palms were harshly pressed against his eyes. “I can’t watch anymore cartoons, I’m going insane.” He immediately confessed, rubbing his eyes and dropping his hands down but keeping his eyes squeezed shut, trying to take some comfort in the break from the bright flashing colours onscreen.

Deceit simply hummed with a twitch of his eyebrow, inspecting his gloves with the airy nonchalance that Virgil was rapidly coming to think was faked but wasn’t sure enough to confirm. “Thought we were getting somewhere for a moment.” He eventually commented, letting his hand fall down to rest idly on his hip as Virgil groaned in response, tucking his knees up to his chest.

“We were- we are- I _am_. I just.” Turning to Deceit with as much despair as he could muster, it wasn’t hard, he levelled him with a pleading stare. “Can we watch literally anything else?”

“Not sure where this ‘we’ came from-” Deceit retorted, nothing in his face showing he was aware or willing to admit that he’d been the first to say it and Anxiety didn’t have the energy to fight him on it, instead starting to push himself up off the couch.

“Forget it, this was all pointless-”

“No. Stop, just… sit. I think we can probably change it, I mean, it’s an imaginary TV, surely we aren’t limited to what Thomas is watching.” Deceit fumbled with the remote for a moment, concentrating, before the flashing images on the TV mellowed into something blessedly calmer. The opening sequence of Sleeping Beauty eased onto the screen. “Will this do?”

“Is it on Cartoon Network?” Anxiety asked, not convinced by the animation but he at least looked intrigued.

Deceit rolled his eyes much harder than necessary and crossed his arms, making his way around the coffee table to sit on the other end of the couch. Anxious eyes watched him go. “No.”

“Then it’ll do.” Shifting away to tuck himself into the corner, Anxiety stared as Deceit settled down on the couch, looking so much more dignified, so much _calmer_ , than Anxiety thought he would ever feel. “What are you doing?”

Deceit raised an eyebrow and turned his cool gaze on Anxiety, the scaly side of his face coming in to view. “What, I can put something on but I’m not allowed to watch it?” The anxious side clearly wasn’t meant to notice and wasn’t about to bring it up, but there was a hesitancy in Deceit’s eyes that betrayed the confidence with which he lounged in his seat. He was proud, he could tell, and he wasn’t about to leave because Anxiety wanted him to, but he clearly didn’t want to be asked to go.

Anxiety was quick to discourage that doubt. He was startled by the decision, sure. Not entirely eager, he could admit, and not completely comfortable but hey, what was new there. “No, it’s not that, it’s just…”

“You don’t want me to.” Deceit concluded, turning quickly and staring stony-faced at the telly.

“No!” Anxiety floundered, worrying that every conversation with this side going to be this difficult. “No, I do- do you? Want to?”

“No, I’m forcing myself to watch my favourite film with literally the only person I have to talk to.” And that was a little too honest for Deceit’s liking. He hated people knowing something about him when he didn’t know it first about them but he wasn’t about to ask. It’s not like he wanted Anxiety to think he _cared_ or wanted to start a conversation or anything… He wasn’t feeling at all embarrassed.

Anxiety glanced awkwardly over but Deceit wasn’t looking at him so he soon swung his attention back to the TV. They were painfully quiet, each sitting on the far sides of the couch, and Anxiety really wasn’t sure what he was meant to make of... _any_ of this. Deceit clearly wanted the company, and Anxiety did too, but he wasn’t even sure what they were doing _counted_ as company. Either way, sitting there thinking about it wasn’t helping; he was still on edge. He maybe wasn’t as tense as when he’d first sat down but he sure as hell wasn’t calm and Deceit’s brooding in the corner wasn’t helping. He needed to say something, maybe start a conversation? No sooner had the thought crossed his mind before panic shot through him and his breath caught in his throat as he tried to calm his breathing. He shut the idea down for now, desperately taking in the scene on the TV as Maleficent showed up. He was starting to get an understanding of why Deceit liked it so much; he seemed to have a similar aesthetic going on; or trying to at least. That kind of helped. He latched onto that thought, missing some of the dialogue but the story wasn’t exactly hard to follow. His eyes flicked over to Deceit again who, while still lounging in his seat, was visibly enjoying the brief appearance of the villain and it made him want to smile, just a little. 

It took a while to get himself back to just-tense instead of panicked but he had to admit, the film was kind of helping, even the corny music number. A quick check confirmed that Deceit was still enjoying it, his foot twitching in front of him as his eyes tracked the pair dancing onscreen. Anxiety couldn’t help but wonder if Deceit knew the routine, and if he was aware he was potentially giving that information away. It briefly occurred to him that maybe he should just stop watching him. The other side hadn’t exactly made it _obvious_ that he was a private person but it was Anxiety’s job to notice things, to analyse things, to worry about things. Maybe he was overthinking things. But Deceit was _definitely_ holding things close to his chest. They really were the last two sides who should be trapped together, weren’t they?

He decided not to think about that right now, it wasn’t helpful. Instead, he mustered the courage to try something.

“So,” He started, wincing as Deceit immediately tensed up beside him. He tried for casual, wanting to ease into a conversation without offending the other. “This is your favourite film?” Anxiety’s last breath followed the question out as it hung between them. His heart was bursting in his chest but he kept his mouth shut, his lungs sealed, as he waited for Deceit’s reaction. It wasn’t terrible…

“Yes, what were you expecting?” But it wasn’t great either. Deceit didn’t look offended; he looked defensive. His jaw was tight and he didn’t know if he’d imagined it but he could have sworn there had been another brief glow of yellow from Deceit’s eye. Anxiety wasn’t sure what that meant. He’d been aware of his own eyes glowing when he was in his room, in the dark it had been hard not to, but he didn’t really know _why_. He’d assumed it was because he was scared, panicked like he had been when he’d first appeared. It made him wonder if his eyes were glowing _now_ , had they been glowing this whole time? And now he was embarrassed. Deceit didn’t want to talk, he thought Anxiety hated his favourite film, and his eyes might have been panic-glowing this whole time, and great, now he was getting flustered. What if that made them worse? He latched onto the only thing he thought he could potentially salvage from this horror-show of an attempt at small talk.

Anxiety hunkered himself down in his seat, pulling his hood down to hopefully hide the top half of his face. “I-I don’t know. Not this.” He confessed, somewhat comforted by the lack of purple he could see under his hood. “I like it, though.” He quickly added, watching Deceit’s feet and listening instead of his previous side-eyed scrutiny.

Deceit remained silent but the angle of his foot relaxed and Anxiety took that as a win. Hidden as he was from view, and their “conversation” resembling a minor collision instead of the train wreck he’d thought it would be, Anxiety gathered the last of the strength he had and gave it one more go.

“…I’ve never seen a film before.”

“Fascinating.”

He decided he was never talking to another human ever again.

Deceit was happy to let him.

In reality, they caved the next day. There was really no way for them to avoid each other. After their first “movie night”, Anxiety had slept on the couch. He didn’t feel comfortable yet going back into his room, and the nervous glance Deceit had fired his way when heading back to his own room confirmed that he wasn’t quite comfortable with him going back in either. So he’d camped out on the couch, a pile of blankets he wasn’t sure if he’d summoned had been pulled out of the closet and he’d made quite a nice little nest for himself in the corner Deceit had been sitting in; this corner was closer to the wall which made it easier for him to watch the rest of the room.

It was long past noon the next day and he was slinking in from the kitchen, arms full of snacks, when he spotted Deceit sitting on the couch where Anxiety had been sitting last night, respecting his blanket nest. Deceit did nothing to acknowledge that he’d returned and Anxiety was left fidgeting with his snacks, not sure what to do now.

Deceit was watching him out of the corner of his eye. He was well aware he was being disruptive, maybe that’s why he’d never spent much time in the commons with the others. Oh well. Eventually, it just became awkward, Anxiety wasn’t moving; he was still just standing there, trying to suss him out, so Deceit turned to raise an eyebrow at him. Anxiety flushed and scowled at him before diverting his eyes, ignoring the smug little smile on Deceit’s face as he shuffled around the table and over to his corner.

“Why is the TV on?” He asked, depositing his snacks on the coffee table and pulling it closer to his side of the couch. If Deceit was going to act like a baby then fine. Anxiety was younger. He was better at it.

“I didn’t realise it wasn’t allowed to be on.” But Deceit wasn’t making it easy.

“What? No, that’s not what I- were you going to watch something?”

“An astute observation.” He drawled.

Anxiety huffed and glowered at the TV, paused on the opening credits of… “That’s- is that the film from last night?”

Deceit didn’t answer, shifting slightly, uncomfortable and knowing that Anxiety would have caught the movement. It _was_ the same film from last night, it had been the first time in a long while he’d been able to enjoy it. On the rare occasion that anyone other than Creativity had been allowed to choose a film, Deceit usually picked this one, despite the fact, or perhaps because of it, the other three were usually too loud to enjoy it. Sure, their old movie nights had been fun, in their own way, but honestly Deceit couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten to just sit and watch a film. Anxiety’s company was hardly ideal, not that he himself was contributing much, but at least he was reasonably quiet. Still, being called out and put on the spot like this, having already admitted to loving the film, rubbed him the wrong way. He was speaking before his mind could catch up but when it did…

“You don’t have to watch it if you don’t-”

“Can I watch with y-”

They both shut up, eyes locked uncomfortably as they processed what the other had been saying. The human side of Deceit’s face flushed and he quickly turned towards the TV, pressing play and counting his blessings that one: the snake half couldn’t blush, and two: that was the half currently facing Anxiety. The other side in question was burrowing himself into his hoodie and they both sat quietly for most of the film. A few minutes in, Anxiety had snagged a chocolate bar from the stash in front of him, gently pushing the table back between them with his foot. A peace offering. Around half-way through Deceit did the same, nibbling his way through it as something like calm settled around them. Anxiety felt like this was the closest he’d come to being relaxed since he’d gotten here; Deceit, well, he’d been more comfortable in his life but… this wasn’t too bad.

Once again, it was Anxiety who broke the silence, not even seeming like he’d meant to. “This was my favourite part.” He’d chimed, face flushing when he realised he’d spoken and he slouched automatically down into himself as Deceit turned to face him, eyebrow raised.

“…This part is terrifying.” He replied, almost looking like he was smiling, something Anxiety until this point wasn’t aware he would see again as Maleficent transformed into the dragon. Maybe it was because he was letting him invade his space, or because he’d shared his food, or just because they were actually talking about his favourite film (it didn’t really matter, Deceit would deny it all anyway) but he kind of wanted to return a bit of the olive branch Anxiety had been holding out. Or maybe it was just that it had been nearly a week since he’d had an actual, pleasant conversation and he was about ready for one. He was only (mostly) human after all.

Anxiety was surprised that Deceit had actually answered him, short as that answer had been, and it showed, but he took it for what he hoped it was and continued. “I know,” he nodded, the beginnings of a tiny smirk twitching at his lips and wow… apparently he could smile too. “But it’s awesome.”

Deceit couldn’t help it, he let out a gentle laugh and shook his head. “You know, for someone who’s meant to be calming down you’re doing a _wonderful_ job of it.” He snarked, teasing instead of scathing as he chanced bringing a foot up onto the couch, settling into a more comfortable seating position but watching carefully for Anxiety’s reaction. The other side caught on immediately, subtly twisting so he was facing down between Deceit and the TV, turning more easily between the two and settled nicer into his little nest.

“You’re the one who put it on.” He reminded him, hugging a knee to his chest and resting his chin on top of it. Anyone else looking in would easily see how wary both sides still were of the other but they were trying, they both knew it, and that was enough for now. They didn’t talk too much for the rest of the film, just occasionally pulling out a scene and chatting through it, but despite the smirks and jibes and sass each of them threw at the other it was generally reciprocated in a friendly enough way. It turned out to be the nicest evening they’d had: Anxiety ever, and Deceit in a long time.

That night Anxiety once again slept in his makeshift little bed, Thomas’s mind lightening up for the first time in days. When Anxiety woke up, his day went much the same as the one before: he messed around in the sitting room or the kitchen; he very briefly ventured into his room and washed, changed his clothes, noted how the shadows that had flooded his room within hours of him being there for the first time were already retreating into the corners, and left again to find Deceit on the couch. He’d thrown a yellow blanket over the back of the couch, and there was a hot water bottle tucked into his side as he once again lounged over the cushions like he owned them. Actual food was laid out on the table, sandwiches, but still more substantial than crisps and bars of chocolate, along with a small selection of video boxes.

“You haven’t seen any so you obviously don’t get to contribute to the choice but you can pick one if you want to, I really don’t care.” Deceit offered, not even bothering to look at Anxiety or his choices, instead inspecting his nails in a show of nonchalance.

Anxiety fought back a smile, tugging as always at his hood as he picked up a sandwich from the dish in front of him, followed by a box. _The Black Cauldron_ , it both looked and sounded sinister enough to be worthwhile, a sneaky glance at the rating assuring him he wasn’t about to be traumatised.

On the couch, Deceit rolled his eyes, not even bothering to pretend he hadn’t been snooping just a little as Anxiety pushed the video into the machine. “Of course you would choose the one with no songs.”

“If you didn’t want a show with no songs you shouldn’t have offered it.” Anxiety fired back, a flash of a smirk pointed at Deceit before he bit into his sandwich, the first real food of his existence, and hummed happily. As he settled down into his spot on the couch, Deceit couldn’t help but be aware of the general _feeling_ of the mindscape around them as well as the one outside. Things were lifting a bit, he could tell. He could feel the others beginning to work, and Thomas beginning to calm. He turned to watch Anxiety. For once, he didn’t seem entirely aware of every potentially bad thing around him. He was definitely aware of Deceit’s scrutiny, he could tell by the quick lift of his shoulders, his attempt to shrink himself down a bit despite their back-and-forth just a moment ago. But he actually seemed to be enjoying the moment. He was gently easing himself into something that could almost resemble calm to the untrained eye. Deceit let his attention wander back over to the film and felt the couch ease slightly as Anxiety settled back into a comfortable position now that his eyes were off him. This was actually working.

Honestly, he was a bit amazed but here they were, almost side by side and finally, Anxiety’s grip on Thomas was easing up. He could feel the suggestions of the other three floating around, felt as Thomas took them started _doing things_ for the first time since their blow up. He felt Anxiety’s tension whenever he did and did his best to smooth it over for Thomas and to distract the side next to him. It wasn’t as easy as the way things ran before but it was a start, and he could work with this.

He was starting to think they were going to be ok.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If there was ever a more sinister end to a chapter am I right? Don't be fooled by the brief moments of happiness, angst had to be cut out because this was getting a bit too long... I don't envy you the next couple chapters :)
> 
> But anyway! This was late because it was twice the length I'd planned. Editing is slightly rushed because I wanted to get it out so please tell me if there are any mistakes. I'm hoping to put out a chapter every Tuesday? Hopefully? And I'm still aiming to get the next one done for then. If not, we'll just keep playing catch-up like this until I finally get a post out on a Tuesday.
> 
> In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed and feel free to come say hi on Tumblr! Same username, profile pic is a shifty looking hen x


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things have finally begun to settle across the mindscapes but the others have questions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, no spoilers for newest video but probably for the last time as I cannot guarantee zero spoilers from here on in. Enjoy!

It had been about a week since Anxiety had shown up, maybe a couple of days more than that, when Anxiety and Deceit were finally comfortable just sitting in the same room as each other. Well, “comfortable” was a strong word, Deceit supposed, but if nothing else _he_ was pretty relaxed and Anxiety didn’t currently look like he wanted to crawl inside the walls so that was close enough. He had a book in his lap, happily reading to the soft but incessant clicking of the Rubik’s cube that Anxiety was puzzling over. He wasn’t sure if he was actually trying to solve it or just playing with it; realistically he must have been close to solving it at least once for how long he’d been at it but every time Deceit had looked over Anxiety had switched between being hyper-focused on the game, and glancing idly around the room, just fidgeting. Either way, the room had a little bit of background noise and that was so much better than the chilly silence that had existed outside of the TV since they’d landed here. Sure. They could have a conversation now, pleasant ones even, but they were still basically strangers and so far it seemed that the circumstances behind their acquaintance were going to hang heavily in the air for a while longer. Even here, today, Anxiety would stop playing, becoming aware of the noise his little game was making in the otherwise silence of the room. Each time he paused Deceit would give it a minute then look over, the question in his face, in the twitch of his eyebrow, _why did you stop_?

Anxiety would inevitably flush and look back down at his game. He wouldn’t start again right away and Deceit wouldn’t push him, he’d just exaggerate the turning of each page in his book. If the silence went on much longer he’d absently flip through the pages ahead of him as he read, creating some space around them where noises were actually allowed until Anxiety either got the hint or got bored enough to start messing again. The quick, nervous clicks of a game being played incorrectly would join up with Deceit’s artificial carelessness until they’d both forgotten they were making a point and went back to just enjoying themselves.

The mindscape was calm, increasingly so, in fact, as Anxiety cautiously navigated his place in the world. That was until the door to the light side unlocked, and with that knowledge reverberating painfully through their minds, their peace shattered. Anxiety stared at Deceit and Deceit stared at the door. For a tense moment neither one moved, waiting for the others’ next move. When the other sides’ door opened, Deceit stood and slowly made his way to theirs, Anxiety tracking him across the room and shakily getting to his feet but making no move to actually follow him. He’d never met the other sides, he’d barely even _seen_ them before, and this was the first time any of them had attempted to contact each other since- well. Since he’d crashed in, ruined everything, and compromised Thomas nearly every day since. Deceit turned back to Anxiety and his eyes widened at how much of the progress they’d made was already gone. The shadows under Anxiety’s eyes were creeping once again down his cheeks and he was hunched under his hoodie, the fabric hanging over him, making it hard to even see him underneath it.

He lifted his hat from the wall and placed it on his head, levelling a bored look over at Anxiety as he straightened out his clothes. The caution with which he’d made his way to the door was shrugged off, a relaxed and confident slouch settling into his shoulders as he stood, composed, by the exit. “The others are on the bridge.” He informed, pretending not to notice how much tenser that made the other side. “I suppose I should see what they want though I doubt they have anything useful to say. You can come if you like but I can assure you it won’t be of much interest.” Deceit paused and inspected his gloves, seemingly waiting for a response but they both knew he was really waiting for Anxiety’s reaction. It was quiet for a long time, eventually prompting Deceit to look back up. Anxiety was staring at him, scared but visibly relieved that he wasn’t being asked to go. Smiling a little, Deceit nodded and gestured for Anxiety to sit back down, fixing the cuffs of his jacket in one last fidgety act of hesitation. “I’ll be back soon.”

Anxiety nodded and perched down on the edge of the couch but still flinched when Deceit reached for the door. Deceit watched as he pulled nervously at the strings on his hoodie, quietly clearing his throat to get his attention. “We’re just going to have a conversation which I’m sure will be _completely awful_. It’s _definitely_ going to be the worst thing that’s ever happened to us and everything will be _terrible_ afterwards.

Anxiety just stared for a moment, bewildered, before a smile started to pick up at the corner of his mouth and a breathy laugh fell from his lips. “I thought worrying was my job.” He quipped after a moment, his smile twitching into a smirk as the shadows under his eyes eased up from his cheeks, actually resembling eyebags now instead of the horror-show of clown makeup he’d had before.

“Cute.” Deceit drawled. With one final smirk he opened the door, the pulse of nervousness that followed him out expected but not as bad as he’d worried it would be. Still, he closed the door behind him, not wanting to upset Anxiety more by letting him overhear what they both suspected was going to be an unpleasant conversation about at least one of them.

Crossing his arms, he stood by his door and watched the three at the other end of the bridge, Morality giving a small timid wave which he pointedly ignored. They looked tired, he noted, even from this distance; worse than he did anyway and that was fine by him. Their half of the bridge, however, was a _lot_ nicer looking than his, he thought, not bitter at all. Where his side was clearly made from the debris left over from the old mindscape they had once shared, their side? Well. It looked just about as bright and shiny as them. Or, as bright and shiny as they usually looked. On his side, rocks jutted up oddly everywhere; there wasn’t a level place to stand, something that both halves of the bridge had shared until recently. The other half was smooth, cobbled, it had _handrails_. Deceit’s side just had sheer drops into the subconscious on either side, but again, he wasn’t bitter. The other three, led by Creativity, began their purposeful march to the middle of the bridge so, with an eyeroll too exaggerated to be missed, Deceit started picking his way over too. He stumbled once or twice, totally for show and not at all because dress shoes and steep inclines didn’t go together, before finally reaching Creativity who had a hand outstretched to help him onto flat land. Deceit took it, balanced himself, and quickly snatched his back, crossing his arms with an irritated, embarrassed flush on his cheeks as he turned away from Creativity’s remorseful gaze.

“It wouldn’t let me change it.” He quickly explained, looking and sounding sincere in his guilt and Deceit sensed no trace of a lie. That didn’t mean he had to be happy about it.

“This part of the mindscape exists outside of Creativity’s influence.” Logic informed, ready to move on with the conversation. Architecture was hardly what they had decided to meet here to discuss, however, the sorry state of the bridge beyond the halfway point perhaps could be given some attention. Maintaining his distance from the sentimentality that drove Creativity, he could agree it was unfortunate that the other half of the mindscape, or at least the bridge, was in such disrepair. For safety reasons, of course. “Simply put, this half does not _belong_ to Creativity. It’s… yours.” _And the new side’s_. It was unspoken but Logic really needn’t have bothered to censor himself because all three of the remaining conscious sides at least glanced over to the door. Morality flat out stared at it as if Anxiety might appear at any moment. Deceit could feel himself getting defensive on both of their behalves but made sure to just meet Logic’s cool stare with one of his own. This was natural territory, he supposed, feeling somewhat relieved that Logic, at least, didn’t seem to be acting any different from the last time they’d spoken.

“If it’s mine then why can’t _I_ change it?” He drawled, as if he’d ever tried, and Logic took his cue perfectly, just as he’d expected. It was the same as any interaction or debate they’d ever had, he would prompt him, Logic loved to answer, and Deceit would leave with some new knowledge and a better idea of how to get what he wanted. Morality used to scold him for it, as if Logic wasn’t perfectly aware and happy to share. Even now the baby blue side was watching between them, catching on to the old pattern easily. Deceit couldn’t help but wonder how ignorant the other two would be without his and Logic’s constant back-and-forth.

Logic crossed his arms, a decent mirror of Deceit’s own stance, and raised an eyebrow at him. “Like the rest of us, you have never had the power to make significant changes to any aspect of the mindscape outside of your own room and basic summoning; that level of control has and will always belong to Creativity. As the… owner? …of this side of the mindscape it is not unreasonable to assume that your influence has increased, but you still could not make fundamental changes to your surroundings. That would still fall to Creativity, assuming, of course, that his own influence would be accepted.”

Creativity lit up, turning to Deceit as he and Logic shared an exasperated, if a bit fond, look. When Deceit realised, he was quick to look away, focusing instead on Creativity and his expectant smile. With a casual wave of his hand, Deceit nodded his permission and Creativity turned as serious as he could while the prospect of making something was right in front of him. Within seconds the ground on Deceit’s half of the bridge was shifting, grinding itself down and out until it matched the rest of it, handrails and all. The ground had barely settled before a pulse of anxiety pressed in around them. They could feel Thomas’s fright, could even feel it in themselves, as the knowledge that the door to the subconscious side’s mindscape had unlocked again. All four of them turned to watch but the door stayed closed. Even as Thomas calmed, Deceit knew that whatever moment of normalcy that they had been having was over; the reason for their meeting coming back to the forefront.

The other three had gone strangely grim and Deceit wrapped an air of aloofness around him like armour as he faced them once again. Unsurprisingly, it was Morality who first broached the subject. Looking more wrung out than Deceit had ever seen him, Morality shifted his way to the front of their little group and tentatively cleared his throat. “Dee, kiddo, this new side…” He started, looking like he wanted to be discussing this under any other circumstances. As it stood, he looked awful, like he hadn’t slept since Deceit had last seen him. Before he could continue, Creativity burst in.

“Whatever has been going on, Deceit, needs to stop.” He stressed, and now that he was focused on the topic at hand, Deceit could see that he actually _was_ stressed; an uncomfortable fit for him. Still, Deceit couldn’t quite bring himself to care, immediately getting back on the defensive.

“Thomas has rarely been so unproductive.” Logic added, falling into his roll a lot easier than the other two more whimsical sides. “He has refused to take part in _any_ activity outside of watching television and even that could not calm him down from the fear that this new side-”

“Anxiety.” Deceit interrupted.

“…Anxiety has caused.” Logan continued, none of them looking any way comforted by this new information. “Even Creativity has struggled to engage with him. He’s been too worried to even ‘zone out.’”

Deceit took his time looking each of them in the eye, trying to buy the time to calm himself down. “The embodiment of Thomas’s Anxiety spawned into being in the middle of an argument that was so severe it caused the mindscape to split in two.” He reminded, lingering on Morality when he flinched and looked down at the ground. “And yet you’ve called me here to criticise not only how well he has been handling these monumental changes to all of our lives, but also the speed at which he has managed to gain control over his influence on Thomas. Causing him _more_ stress and anxiety in the process. That seems fair.” Morality, predictably, looked concerned but Creativity took his little speech for the attack that it was and returned his defensive attitude.

“He’s been out of control, Dee! Just look at Morality!” Sweeping an arm out, he nearly hit the aforementioned side in the face but barely cared to notice. “He’s exhausted! He’s been running ragged trying to calm Thomas down, and Logic!” He exploded, Logic having the foresight to dodge his arms. “Logic has been trying to talk him out of the most absurd worries and fears! I’ve barely been able to open my mouth; I’ve been trying to come up with the safest, most boring daydreams I can and every time an enemy will pop out of nowhere, or the house will catch fire or- or- he’ll trip! He’ll just trip and it won’t even be from that high up, he’ll just stumble _in a dream_ stepping off a curb and suddenly his heartrate is through the roof and he thinks he’s going to die!” Logic placed his hand on Creativity’s shoulder and gave him a hard look. In turn, Creativity sighed, harsh and loud and not at all calm, but he shut up for the time being. Before he could speak, however, Deceit had already launched in.

“Oh, poor you, ‘Tiv. It must have been _so hard_ these last few days not being able to play with Thomas.” Deceit returned, a mocking, sympathetic pout twisting his face as he rounded on the other side. “It’s not as though another side has been trapped over here, _living_ those ‘absurd’ fears. Getting scared of every scenario you’ve thrown into the rink and working through them as a _brand-new side_. Anxiety is doing his best and the progress that he has made is commendable. He has been getting better every day since-” He felt as if his throat had closed at just the thought of his little venture into Anxiety’s room, and standing here on this bridge between them, he didn’t think the others really deserved to know about that particular hardship. “We have been making progress. Continuously. We both felt you all jumping in to ‘save the day’ once we got on stable footing but you know what? Anxiety has a role to play in keeping Thomas safe. A _terrifying_ one. _Please_ forgive him while he struggles to figure it out. He’s working extremely hard to be _useful_ to you.”

None of them knew what to say after that outburst; even Deceit silenced himself, feeling somewhat justified in what he’d said but not knowing how to continue. Instead, he just pursed his lips, biting his tongue, as he waited for one of the others to respond. Unfortunately, the first one to do so was Morality.

“None of us are doubting that A-Anxiety has his place here, kiddo.” He tried to placate but Deceit just saw red.

“That’s rich coming from you.” He snapped before he could help himself and for all intents and purposes he stood by it but inside he was recoiling not only from the double standard that Morality seemed to once again be piling against him but from his own lack of control as well. This whole conversation, for how little of it they’d actually had, had been as taxing as he’d thought it would be but he was not handling it as gracefully as he’d hoped.

Morality watched Deceit for a moment, hurt, but when it became clear Deceit was done he sighed and spoke again. “We just… we want to make sure that he’s ok. That you’re both ok.”

“And we’re so grateful that you waited a week to do it.” He answered, brushing away his concern, a sour taste in his mouth. “Well you can rest easy, we’re fine over here so you don’t have to feel so guilty about not wanting us back, because you don’t, do you? You’re quite happy for us to stay over here, just so long as we’re _ok_.”

“That’s not fair, Dee!” Creativity defended, placing a hand on Morality’s shoulder when he flinched away. “It seems like _Thomas_ doesn’t want you to come back if anything.”

Deceit whipped towards Creativity, seething, but Logic stepped in before he could say anything. “It would appear he is not ready for you both to have such active influences over his life and this past week has not helped.” Deceit pressed his lips tight together as he listened, but he kept watching the other two; Creativity standing protectively over Morality like he was the villain in one of their games, the gentle side looking more upset than Deceit had ever seen him. “He has accomplished so little this past week because he was… _scared_ , Deceit.”

“And so were we!” Morality agreed, clearly trying to keep some level of peace, to make Deceit _understand_.

“I don’t think you can come back, not yet anyway, and I think you know that.” Logic finished gently, looking remorseful, but Deceit had heard enough, the fight leaving him so suddenly he felt drained.

“I do. And that’s not what I asked.” He responded, his voice cold but he could feel his throat squeezing and against his efforts his breath hitched on his last word. He watched as Morality folded in on himself. He looked heartbroken, and even Logic flinched but Deceit was more than ready to leave. He coughed harshly and spun away. “Well, this has been an absolute delight. I’ll pass your notes on to Anxiety, I’m sure they’ll do wonders for him. _So_ nice seeing you all again.” He was stalking back towards his half of the mindscape before he had even finished talking, wanting to be as far away from them as possible.

Morality called after him but he ignored it, throwing open the door and stumbling slightly at the sight of Anxiety jumping back, clearly having been waiting for him to return. Anxiety’s eyes were wide and he was tucked so snug into hid hoodie it looked like it was a part of him. He peeked around past Deceit at the three in the middle of the bridge staring back at him and Deceit didn’t know who looked more scared, him or them.

Morality came to himself first, his protective instincts kicking in automatically at the sight of the two together, one clearly hurt and the other terrified. “Dee, wait!” He took a step forward and Anxiety flinched back, so Deceit reacted in the only way he could think how. With a sharp snap Morality’s hand shot up to cover his mouth, silencing him immediately. Creativity yelled over at him, betrayal and anger mincing together into something that didn’t quite come out as words. Deceit slammed the door shut. It didn’t lock, something all five sides were aware of, but even as Deceit and Anxiety waited on their side, it didn’t open again. Deceit gave a teary scoff, throwing his hat aside and stalking to his room, slamming that door shut as well for good measure as Anxiety watched him go.

He was breathing hard now, not needing the gentle reflection in the handle of the door to confirm that his eyes were glowing once more. Deceit had explained to him, eventually, that he didn’t think the others’ eyes did this, it was just another thing that set them apart. That he’d been quite relieved, honestly, when Anxiety’s eyes had lit up that first day because until then, his were the only ones that did it, if not nearly as often as Anxiety’s. He had the scales, though, so he was hardly the odd one out. It had made him feel a little better at the time but now, standing so close to the others, Anxiety couldn’t help but be reminded of this difference once again.

Outside, Morality’s hand was still covering his mouth but of his own will now. Tears were threatening to fall from his eyes but he could hold them in for a few moments more. He turned to the others and gently began to usher them back home, shaking off the questions of if he was alright, the accusations being hurled over at Deceit, and the reminders that things had always been difficult between them all, maybe they would iron it out eventually. He saw the other two through the door and made a quick but weak excuse to keep himself on the bridge, smiling wetly at the others who allowed it, if cautiously, to let him compose himself. Morality braced a shoulder against the door as soon as it was shut but still, he wasn’t ready to let the tears fall. Instead he waited, hoping against hope that the far door would open again, that Deceit would skulk out and they would somehow forgive each other for yet another conversation gone so horribly wrong. When the door did open, he wasn’t prepared to see Anxiety in the entrance and he stood, stunned, staring.

Purple eyes peered cautiously back at him from across the bridge. Set into his shadowed face, the glow obscured his expression but the way he held himself made his discomfort plain to see. Anxiety wasn’t sure why he’d peeked, morbid curiosity, he thought, panicking again because he didn’t expect anyone to still be there. And yet here he was, proved wrong and watching as Morality stood there with his eyes wide, shocked.

What if he was scaring him?

 _He was scaring him_.

**What if he hated him?**

Morality still hadn’t moved and Anxiety felt sick, pulling his hood down harshly to hide his eyes. He didn’t see Morality snapping into action and reaching out his hand, didn’t hear the soft “no, wait” that fell from his lips, instead feeling tears prick his eyes as he quickly shut the door and let it lock. He didn’t see Morality break down, the tears finally spilling down his cheeks as he sobbed into the sleeves of his cardigan, knowing in his bones that this was a moment he would carry and regret for years.

On the other side of the door, Anxiety was angrily swiping the tears from under his own eyes. _Why was he crying?_ He thought as he hurried across the room and threw himself into his nest, wrapping himself up in his blankets and tipping forward until his face was pressed into the cushions. It didn’t count as crying if the tears couldn’t go anywhere. They didn’t last long anyway, gone by the time he’d calmed himself down from his own anxiety, but he stayed as he was for a few minutes after he’d finished, thinking over the encounter if he could even call it that. Morality had looked sad, he recalled, like he was barely holding it together, and Anxiety could understand that. If Deceit had come in looking like he was about to cry, from what Anxiety knew about the other side he was probably taking whatever had happened just as bad.

It was hours later by the time Deceit came back out of his room. Anxiety was still burritoed in his blankets but he’d gotten up earlier to pick up Deceit’s hat and hang it on its “hook.” He’d also made sandwiches. His was long gone but there was another sitting on the table next to Deceit’s spot on the couch and he took it gratefully as he sat himself down, looking as composed as always. “So what are we watching?” He asked, neither of them looking at each other as Anxiety’s hand poked out from inside his blankets with the remote. A quick press of the button and the TV began to play _Snow White_ and Anxiety retreated back into his cocoon; Thomas had been watching it the other day but hadn’t been able to finish it as Anxiety had overreacted to the queen’s transformation. His parents had turned it off but Thomas had been begging to watch it again, having enjoyed the start so much. Anxiety figured he owed it to him to at least prepare himself for it. Neither of them mentioned what had happened earlier. It didn’t seem right yet.

“I’ve been thinking.” He mumbled, waiting for Deceit to hum vaguely before continuing. “I think I might be ready to try moving back into my room.” Deceit raised an eyebrow at that but kept watching and eating, not giving any indication of how he felt. Taking the time to push past the dread that statement automatically dragged up from deep inside him.

Anxiety’s leg began to bounce, disturbing the couch, and when it became apparent he wasn’t saying anything else, Deceit turned to give him his attention, finding the other side watching him in turn. “Ok?” He answered, not sure what Anxiety wanted from him but it certainly wasn’t that if the huff he let out was any indication.

“Do you think it’s- I mean,” He floundered, getting flustered as he tried to force his thoughts into words.

“Do you want help?” Deceit eventually prompted, starting to get an idea of what Anxiety was asking. “Because that’s _definitely_ how I’d like to spend my evening. What you do in your own time is your business, Anxiety. I don’t particularly care where you sleep.” His heart was beating just a little bit faster at the thought of Anxiety returning to his room, he could remember the effects it had had on him vividly and did his best every day to ignore it, because since then the influence of the room had diminished to almost nothing. He knew as well as Anxiety did that his room had “calmed down” as Anxiety had settled in. Was he nervous about him going in? Yes, absolutely, but he also knew they weren’t doing themselves any favours by putting it off. He also wasn’t about to push him through the door either, though. Anxiety would have to make up his own mind about it.

“So you don’t-” Anxiety burst before cutting himself off, squinting at Deceit who was once again watching the TV and had gone back to his sandwich. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, or why he’d asked, but some kind of reaction would have been more helpful than this. His scrutiny wasn’t yielding many answers, Deceit had himself well composed, but surely if he’d had any major problems with it he’d have brought them up, right? Eventually he turned his attention back to the screen, frowning to himself as he chewed the inside of his mouth.

“I wasn’t thinking of going in tonight.”

Deceit hummed.

“But soon.”

“ _Wonderful_.”

“Maybe next week.”

“I’m _so_ pleased for you.”

“Ok.”

“Alright.”

Anxiety gave him another long look. “Alright.”

Deceit rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. “Are you quite done?” He griped, meeting Anxiety’s stare with an expectant one of his own.

“Yeah.” They both once again turned back to the film, a subtle smile twitching at the corner of Deceit’s mouth as Anxiety hid his in his blanket. The unpleasantness of the day was still settling around the room like dust but it could be ignored, at least for a little while, as Snow White chirped away cleaning her newfound home. Their door would stay locked for a few years. Deceit probably would help Anxiety move back into his room and neither of them would appreciate the effort. There would be more movie nights, more pleasantly spent than this one. They would fight but they would still sit down afterwards, apologise sometimes, forgive each other more, and it would happily work for the most part. But for now they just watched charming little animals onscreen.

“I just _love_ this part.” Deceit drawled.

Anxiety smirked in return. “Couldn’t agree more.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A reminder once again that this chapter had to be cut from the last one and it still managed to end up nearly 5000 words long. When you want to write about people's feelings but instead you talk about a bridge for 2000 words amirght?
> 
> Anyway! A chapter update on time to make up for last week, very proud. Next update will be Tuesday again unless I cave and fire something out (not in this story) before then.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed, and if you'd like come say hi on tumblr it's same username as here! I don't know how to add links :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The split! Part one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tag updates! Remus has entered the building.

Anxiety and Deceit had settled into a comfortable routine. Sure, it had taken them a couple of years but progress was progress. Deceit could feel Anxiety’s influence across Thomas’s mind, could feel it in the occasional odd pulse in his chest when one of those tremors of discomfort were stronger than the one before it, but it was nothing unmanageable at the moment. Nothing that Thomas wasn’t learning to deal with. It was one of the many things that shaped their existence as the outcast sides; they weren’t ideal, but while Thomas and the others were clearly not ready to work _with_ them, they were at least prepared to work around them. Still, Deceit thought with a frown, Anxiety could perhaps use a gentle intervention.

It had been a few hours since Deceit had encouraged Thomas to hide away a drawing from one of Creativity’s more… shall he say, pro-active ideas. Personally, Deceit had liked it but he doubted Thomas’s parents would have been entirely thrilled to know that Thomas was considering electrocuting his brother for pushing him earlier. Not that he ever would, of course. Baby steps.

He should have guessed that Anxiety wouldn’t like the idea and _maybe_ should have given him some kind of heads up; secrets and lies still caused him some distress but even so, it had been a while since he’d been affected by one for this long, especially when the secret in question was hardly monumental. If he had to point fingers, which he _never_ did, he’d stick the blame on Creativity for his fellow side’s current distress. This wasn’t the first time Deceit had suggested that Thomas not share one of his creations with his parents, a sentiment nervously encouraged by Anxiety, and Creativity hadn’t once taken it well. It was a silent argument that had been going on between the two unconscious sides and Creativity for a while now and Deceit could only assume it was held quite loudly among the others across the bridge. Morality was never one to stay out of these kinds of situations after all.

Regardless, Deceit reminded himself as he got up from his desk, this had all happened hours before so whatever it was that Anxiety was currently worrying about had gone on for long enough. He left his room and headed to Anxiety’s, knocking firmly on the door. His heart gave its usual nervous jump as Anxiety startled at the noise but it eased quickly; it happened so often that he rarely flinched now, just one of the many things he’d gotten used to over the years. _Not ideal, but manageable_.

Anxiety’s door unlocked and Deceit let himself in, assessing the room as he entered to get an idea of what he was dealing with. The usual heavy feeling he felt when he came here settled around him immediately but Anxiety himself didn’t seem to be struggling with it as he bit the skin around his thumbnail, absent in the way that suggested he was paying more attention to Thomas than him.

“Anxiety.” He called, huffing when his only response was a flippant wave, the other side clearly trying to focus on something, to figure something out. Deceit crossed his arms, hiding his fidgeting fingers, as he studied him. The younger side was frowning, his eyes unseeing as they flitted around the room as though it would help him find whatever answers he was looking for, and the longer Deceit stood there, the more concerned he became about what question it was he needed answering. He couldn’t feel anything out of the ordinary, not from under Anxiety’s own influence, but the other side seemed to be latched onto something and he didn’t like that he didn’t know what it was.

“Anxiety.” He tried again, louder, and this time Anxiety glanced over at him, annoyed for being interrupted, but it was a small enough reprieve from his fanatic thinking, from the concern still trembling through the mindscape, that Deceit caught a glimpse of what was troubling him so much. A frown tugged down onto his own face to match Anxiety’s and he turned slightly as if to follow the feeling that had skittered so briefly past him.

“Do you feel it too?” Anxiety asked, a pulse of concern beating around them as he finally faced Deceit.

“I could, this whole time. Definitely.” He admitted, straining to concentrate. "Kind of.” It wasn’t something that was happening to them or to Thomas, that was all he could be sure of and it frustrated him to no end. From that assurance, though, he could make a fair assumption that it was something happening with the others but if that was true then that was all the information he’d get. The inner workings of the other side of the mindscape didn’t ever reach them here. If it had no influence on Thomas, it had no influence on them and yet here they were, being influenced, and Deceit had no idea what to make of that. He had half a mind to go over, to demand answers, but that would mean being the one to make the first contact between them in years.

Deceit forced himself to tear his attention away from the disturbance and focus back on Anxiety who was once again lost in tracking the strange pressure that was just out of their reach. “As lovely as it is to do this here, we should probably leave, An. For now, at least.” The nickname had the desired effect, snagging Anxiety’s attention, though not as much of it as Deceit would have liked.

“Don’t call me that.” He griped as he always did. He was well aware of why Deceit did it and could sometimes even appreciate it, but right now he didn’t want to be distracted. “There’s something weird going on and I don’t like it.”

“And I'm absolutely _thrilled_ about it, but I’d like to think about it elsewhere. I can barely feel it in h-” The ground lurched beneath their feet before Deceit could finish and he stumbled to catch himself on the nearest piece of furniture. Shadows shot out from every corner as the air got thick, Deceit and Anxiety staring at each other as dread warred with fear in their chests.

Deceit retreated as they’d agreed, a safety measure for when the affects of Anxiety’s room became too much for him, and Anxiety followed immediately behind him. The ground had remained stable since the first tremor but there was a grinding coming from the walls, dust was falling from the ceiling, and Deceit paused in the doorway to try and take it in. Anxiety collided with his back, pushing them both out into the hall, and they stood, with a hand each gripping the other’s arm as they scanned the walls, tensed to flee if they needed to.

Neither one breathed as they listened, the grinding moving past them to the end of the hall and disappearing beyond it.

“Well this is normal.” Deceit commented, feeling Anxiety’s hand tighten uncomfortably around his arm, but nothing else seemed to be happening. Still, Anxiety watched the blank wall and Deceit turned his head to watch their door, wondering if the other’s would maybe come explain what the hell it was that they were doing to cause this. The moment stretched on. His apprehension was uncoiling just enough in his chest to make room for annoyance, and he began to tug on Anxiety’s arm to move them down the hall when the wall they’d been watching exploded.

Debris from what had once be the end of their hallway burst out into the nothingness beyond their home and Anxiety and Deceit were moving before they could even process what had happened. They pulled each other along, Self-Preservation and Fight or Flight competing to get themselves out of the situation the fastest. Their floor cracked under their feet, filling their minds with the collapse of the first mindscape. That terror pushed them to throw themselves as far as they could to escape again. Instead of bursting down into the void below, however, the wood splinted and new flooring was dragged out of the cracks, shooting up the hall and extending further beyond it. The walls followed moments later, chunks of brick and drywall crunching out of the existing structures, slower but more violently than the floorboards which were halted abruptly, hanging suspended over the drop until pieces of wall, thrown further than the rest, began to catch up.

The two sides hit the far wall of the living room, breathing hard as they spun to face the damage. The mouth of the void beyond their walls gaped back at them, shards of wall slowly closing in like teeth around it.

“ **What’s going on?** ” Anxiety demanded, now clinging with both hands to Deceit’s arm as they both struggled to shield the other while staying as far back as they could.

“I don’t know.” Deceit answered, flinching back when a loud splintering crack carved its way down the wall opposite their rooms before the wall continued onwards. He didn’t know, but he was beginning to get an idea. One, it seemed, he shared with Anxiety.

“ **Is this me? Am I doing this again?!** ” He panicked, releasing one hand from Deceit’s arm to clutch at his hoodie, pulling it tight around him.

Deceit let go of Anxiety’s arm to push him between Deceit and the wall. He tried to block him from the view but he could feel it as Anxiety moved to stare over his shoulder, his other hand transferring from his arm to his cape, his back pressed into the wall to ground him.

“I _definitely_ need you to keep panicking like this, it's _really_ helpful! I don't think this us.” He insisted, blocking Anxiety in behind him with one arm. He stepped tentatively sideways to their door. They just needed some distance. To get to the others, maybe, because this was clearly their fault. Deceit didn't believe in coincidences and he had little in the way of faith for the others being able to handle whatever it was they were doing on their own. They had already dropping the ball this badly, who knew what was still to come. He eyed the floor for a split-second to ensure it was stable beneath them before moving more confidently. With way clear, his attention locked back onto the hall and they moved, his arm bumping Anxiety along until the handle of the door was under Anxiety’s hand.

It wouldn’t unlock.

Panic welled back up inside him, whatever confidence that had gotten them to the door left him as the remainder of their hallway mended itself with a final, deafening crunch.

“ _What the hell are they doing over there?_ ” The question burst out of his mouth before he could help it, accusations flying through his mind towards the others because now he didn't have a plan and that sure as hell wasn't his fault. Trying to block out the sound of Anxiety rattling the door behind him, he strained to listen instead to what might be happening in the hall. It was quiet now but he could still hear something moving, something that wasn’t finished yet. Before he could regret it he took a step along the wall back the way they came, his progress, as little as it was, halted by a sharp tug on his cape as Anxiety pulled him back.

“ **What are you doing?** ” Anxiety hissed, his fist wrapped up tight in the fabric of Deceit’s cape, choking him slightly but neither of them could find it in them to care at the moment. Deceit snarled straight back at him, squabbling with him over the fabric as they shushed each other to the soft cracking of drywall creeping a path along the wall at the far end of the hall.

Freeing himself from Anxiety’s grip, Deceit gave a sharp gesture for him to be quiet and stepped again, sticking close to the wall but inching along it to the hall until he could just see the wall opposite their own rooms. The gouge that had carved itself into it before the rest of brickwork had carried on was slowly, gently, tidying itself up, flakes of plaster chipping off into neat lines and gathering on the floor below.

Something touched his arm and Deceit flinched, rounding on the person beside him and barely resisting the urge to slap at Anxiety who had appeared at his side like the ridiculously silent creep that he was, ignoring that he had jumped himself at Deceit’s fright. They glared at each other briefly but their attention was swiftly refocused down the hall again, watching the last of the flakes fall from the perfect rectangle left in the wall. It was silent again, the violence of everything that had happened pulling at their nerves as their suspicions were confirmed. They watched as a door softly faded into the space between the cracks.

It took a moment for the door to fully form and settle comfortably in the wall but as soon as it did it burst open with so much force the handle imbedded itself in the wall. Anxiety’s arms flew up to cling onto Deceit’s shoulders and Deceit struggled to catch them as he refused to move his eyes from the doorway. With Anxiety plastered to his side, almost tucked behind him, he figured he’d been made the leader of whatever the hell kind of team they’d become and waited with renewed dread for the side's next move. 

There was a shuffling sound from the doorway, Deceit could feel Anxiety’s arms tighten on his shoulders, and then a dead body fell out into the hall. A strangled scream tore out from Anxiety’s throat and Deceit would never admit it but if he didn’t know that the body wasn’t real, if he couldn’t see the lie buzzing around the illusion, he would have screamed too. The glow from Anxiety’s eyes burned painfully bright in the corner of his vision as a dark boot emerged from the doorway, the new side stepping cleanly over the body and into view.

“And then when he dies we just do it again!” He shrieked, throwing his head back and screaming with laughter. His whole body tensed up, shaking, a morning star in his hand. “Just to see what happens!” Insane laughs bubbled and burst out of him again and he let the tears from them fall messily down his face. But as soon as it had started it stopped.

He’d spotted them.

His morning star dropped heavily to the floor and his neck snapped as he turned to them and began his advance. Newly formed floorboards were ripped from the ground as the weapon was carelessly, _easily_ , dragged through them. A grin split his face, his mouth pulled so wide it was a wonder his cheeks didn’t crack and bleed from the force.

There was nowhere for them to go. Anxiety was shifting beside him, dropping his arms from his shoulders, and Deceit threw his arm in front of him, begging his mask of cold aloofness to settle on his face while he held Anxiety in place. He needed Anxiety to stay with him, to not lash out or try and flee. He could feel the tension in the anxious side’s muscles, knew that with the option to run splintering into nothingness adrenaline might instruct him to throw himself against the threat instead of away. The new side stopped in front of them, his face frozen, still grinning, but his eyes roamed over the pair of them. They stopped on Anxiety first and Deceit jabbed a warning elbow into his chest when he felt him twitch behind his arm. He watched Anxiety’s eyes flash a threatening, darker purple, and the new side squealed in excitement.

“Ooooh! I’m _loving_ the freaky eye thing you’ve got going on, emo!” Anxiety barely had time to splutter before he continued, bending at the waist to lean in too close to his face. “I wonder if they’d still glow like that if they weren’t in your head.” It wasn’t a threat, at least, Anxiety didn’t think it was a threat, but the genuine curiosity shining in the green eyes staring into his caused him to shrink back. Deceit cautiously let him and then suddenly those green eyes were on him.

“You’ve got nothing on snakey, here, though.” Straightening back up, the new side pivoted on one foot to get a better look at Deceit, throwing the morning star down into the ground so that it was embedded in the floorboards. Deceit gave it a withering glance but his attention was quickly snagged by a hand reaching towards his face. He batted it away, sneering as the new side tried to poke at his cheek again. “Are these real?” He asked, giving up as Deceit hit his hand again. “I wish _I_ had scales, that would be so much cooler!" Deceit didn't like where this was going. The new side's voice deepened to a growl. "I only have _these_.”

The ripping of fabric was the only warning they were given before tentacles filled their vision. The new side grinned, the extra limbs blocking the light around them as green eyes lit up the space between them.

“ **What the hell?** ” Anxiety squawked, pressing his back flat against the wall while Deceit flinched but stood his ground.

“Yes, that’s _completely_ necessary.” He attempted his usual drawl, ruined by the shake in his voice, but he still met the new side’s grin with a flat stare as he swiped out with the three arms on his left side when the tentacles inched too close.

“ ** _Dude, what the hell?!_** ”

Ah. Anxiety. Deceit glanced over to see Anxiety, horrified and staring at his extra arms like he’d grown a new… few sets of arms. He definitely _hadn’t_ forgotten to tell him about that. While Deceit tried to figure out how to address the situation with Anxiety, he felt the new side latch onto one of his arms with his tentacles with a loud coo, pulling at it as he bobbed around to inspect where it was attached to him. Deceit tugged it out of reach and vanished it as he crossed his main arms with a sneer. “ _Stop that_."

“You know, Noodles, you are quickly becoming my favourite!” The new side announced, not looking the least bit put out as his interest jumped between the two. “You know, small, dark, and kind-of-handsome, you better do something really cool soon. If you don’t I’m taking him.”

“That’s enough.” Deceit snapped, painfully aware of the warmth radiating from the human half of his face. It wasn’t every day (or _any_ day, really) that a compliment was fired his way but he wasn’t about to take it at face value, and he was _not_ blushing. “Who are you? Why have you shown up here?” He interrogated, rounding on the new side who looked absolutely thrilled with the attention.

“Why, I’m Thomas’s creativity!” The heralding remark was imperfectly accompanied by a painfully familiar and grandiose pose. Deceit could feel the flush in his cheek drain away so fast he felt a chill stab into his skull. Anxiety shot him a bewildered look but he couldn’t tear his eyes from… from…

Anxiety turned to the new side. He was confused and it acted only to make him more defensive. “Wait. _You’re_ -”

“Anxiety,” Deceit interrupted weakly, and Anxiety returned his worried attention to the oldest side. The door to the other half of the mindscape flew open and Deceit’s breath caught in his chest. “Stay here with… him. I need to…” He barely gave the new side a cautious onceover before moving past Anxiety. He shrugged off his reaching hand and went to their door. It dutifully opened under his hand and Deceit had it open almost as fast as the light side had before stumbling out. Behind him, the two newest sides watched him leave, one with sinister curiosity, the other with near-painful concern. He ignored them both as he shut the door and stared across the bridge at Morality. A scuffling fight broke out behind him almost immediately but it faded into silence as he stepped towards the moral side who was weeping before him, and everything he’d feared was confirmed in one devastating blow. Creativity was gone.

Morality’s attention was caught automatically by Deceit’s appearance and he watched as the crying side broke. The lies of composure that he usually wore so well hung off of him like rags, hanging around him in Deceit’s mind as he was left barely standing, more honest than Deceit could remember seeing him, in his grief. Deceit was well past the halfway point before Morality could make himself move but once he’d taken his first step he didn’t stop until his arms were wrapped tight around Deceit’s middle and he was sobbing into his chest, letting go of every mask of togetherness he’d ever held as his role of the father figure shifted into that of the child.

Deceit could feel tears seeping through his shirt but ignored them, just like he ignored his own tears dripping down off his chin into Morality’s hair. Instead, he raised his arms and let them droop around Morality’s shoulders, the fingers of one hand tangling into the other side’s cardigan to stop them digging into his flesh, the other resting on his head; keeping himself as far away from this person who he had so many conflicting feelings towards, even as he allowed himself to be dragged closer. It took a while; Morality’s tears didn’t stop but Deceit could pretend he’d absorbed enough comfort to ask the question he didn’t think he wanted an answer to.

“What happened?” His voice was quiet, a hissing whisper that wouldn’t let his voice crack. He was amazed that Morality could hear it.

“I don’t know!” Morality hiccupped. He tried to straighten up, his arms climbing up Deceit’s body until one was hooked over his shoulder in a supporting embrace so he could finally wipe at his face with the other. “He was- he was-” Each word threatened to keel him over but Deceit caught him with one hand on his shoulder, firmly lifting him back up as his other hand wiped the tears from his cheeks. Morality could bite back the sobs that wanted to choke him in response to the comforting touch but not the renewed force of his tears. He couldn’t remember when their last gentle interaction had been but he could remember every second of it, just as he would remember this. There was a distance in their embrace now, and he knew they might never get closer again, just further and further apart. Still, Deceit was trying for him, so he tried to continue as Deceit pretended to hold him.

“‘Tiv’s been so m-mad, and- and _sad_. And confused about what he’s making a-and Thomas, he- he kept getting in trouble? And he was ignoring his work a lot. And Cre-” He cut off with a gasping sob, covering his mouth and Deceit grabbed at his elbows when his knees wobbled dangerously. “Cre- Crea- h-he didn’t know why! And I tried to talk to him, to tell him it wasn’t his fault, it wasn’t _anyone’s_ fault and he- he just!”

Deceit could get an idea of what might have happened. Creativity could be wonderful, and he was always proud of his work, but _too_ proud, sometimes. He’d experienced Creativity’s ire in person and from across the mindscape; he enjoyed his work almost as much as he enjoyed the reception of it. He relished in the responses he wanted to inspire. Deceit doubted he’d helped by hiding things away, but Creativity lived for his thoughts to exist outside of himself and that wasn’t always possible.

“Logic said that he split.” Morality added, his confusion making its way through the grief and coming out broken because of it. “But… I don’t know what that means, he’s just so different now and he’s lovely, he really is but he’s not…” He’s not the Creativity they knew. And he wasn’t the Creativity Deceit knew now either.

“He’s over there now?” He asked, his throat straining around the words but he needed to know. He needed to be sure.

“Wh… yes, he’s with Logic.” Morality answered, looking up at Deceit as best he could with his eyes still full of tears, his glasses wet and stained.

“Then there’s two of them.” Deceit concluded. The words had felt heavy in his mind, in his mouth, and they fell down between them like a weight which he could see Morality struggle with.

“There’s… What?”

“There’s two of them. The parts that Thomas wants to listen to and indulge in and the parts that he doesn’t. The parts he’s _not ready for_.” They were poisonous words, words that had left wounds before that had long since festered and scabbed over but the truth behind them would never let them heal. “The creativity that Thomas felt was good has stayed with you, and the part he didn’t like-”

“Is… with…” Realisation swam dim in Morality’s eyes as he looked past Deceit to the far door, the entrance to a place he’d never found the courage to venture into.

“Has been set aside with us.” Deceit confirmed, barely resisting the urge to turn and look back as well. He was almost surprised the door hadn’t opened yet, either with the new Creativity coming out to announce himself or with Anxiety fleeing from him. “Creativity seems to have made his choice; I doubt something like this could have happened without his say-so…”

He wished he could find some kind of comfort in the idea that Creativity could have split to exist between both sides but if he felt it at all it was empty at best. It was hard to find solace in a sacrifice where nothing was gained. He wondered how it happened, who was the instigator, if it had even played out the way Deceit thought it might have. If Creativity had decided to split on his own, he clearly hadn’t thought through how his ideas would make their way from the subconscious mindscape to Thomas. If it had been Thomas himself who had instructed it, well… he really didn’t know how to feel about that yet. Instead, he watched as Morality took in his words, angering at the desperate cling to hope that they had inspired.

“So maybe he could- he’s still here? Kind of, and maybe they could-”

“Save it, Morality.” Deceit snapped, finally stepping back and Morality immediately did the same, tucking his arms up to his chest. “He’s gone and you know it! You’re not the only one who _misses_ him.”

“I know that.” Morality hit back but he didn’t sound angry or more upset despite the fresh tears that began to fall. “I know that- that you miss him, and Logic misses him in his way, but… I’m sorry. I didn’t want to put that on you. On any of you.”

And Deceit broke, somewhere, more than with just the knowledge that the Creativity they knew was gone, but also because… He didn’t want to be mean, he just wanted Morality to _see_. And it seemed that Morality wanted anything other than to be seen right now. “We all miss him. You’re allowed to miss him, ‘rally.” _God, when was the last_ _time he’d used that nickname?_ “You need to lean on Logic, just a bit, and take the time you need right now, but…” Deceit finally looked over at his door. “I’ve got every scary thought Thomas has ever had cooped up alone with the embodiment of his anxiety to deal with now… Creativity is gone, but _I_ need to help them.”

“And I need to help _them_.” Morality echoed, turning to look vaguely back behind him as well, and Deceit pulled him into another quick hug.

“Help yourself first. I'm sure you _won't_ need to.” They both knew he wouldn’t but Deceit squeezed then let him go anyway. “We both have a new side to factor in now, and we’ll need all the strength we can get.” Morality watched him step back, and he felt awkward about leaving without giving some final comment. “Whoever you have in there isn’t ‘Tiv, but they’re still Thomas’s creativity. You're probably not going to mess up."

Morality nodded with a weak excuse of a smile on his face, teary-eyed but working quick to dry them, and Deceit nodded too before they each turned and made their way back to whatever lay beyond their own doors. With a final glance over his shoulder, Deceit saw Morality fix on his patented Dad Smile and let himself back in and he felt his heart clench, pity and contempt fighting against the aching fondness he had for the other side. Instead of dwelling on it, he opened his own door and left the bridge and whatever peace they’d had there behind him again. He had his sides to deal with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all, right off the bat this chapter might not stay as it is. I can't tell if I'm happy with it or not because it's not done, hence the part one. This has been a bad week! But I think I would've kicked myself more for not getting something out today than for putting this out now as it is. I think it's alright. I don't know what happens when I go back in and edit stuff so i'll leave a note with the next chapter if I change anything here. 
> 
> But yes! I hope you enjoy! There would have been some happiness in this chapter if I'd gotten it done but for the meantime just enjoy some angst? I hope? I'll see what I can do. Thank you for reading and I really do hope you enjoy. And yeah! I'm on tumblr under the same username, there are usually some updates happening over there for things happening over here x


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Split! Part 2  
> Please read chapter notes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick warnings, there is some blood and gore mentioned in this chapter and Remus intentionally injures himself. There is also a little bit of swearing, just one that I remember. And we have officially caught up with the new info from Putting Others First so from here on in that will be in place. Enjoy!

Deceit re-entered the commons cautiously, his eyes immediately scanning the room as if he could be attacked at any moment which, with this new side, he felt was a distinct possibility. There was a tension in the room that was usually reserved for Anxiety’s but it wasn’t as bad as he had been expecting which was good. He tried to remember his own advice to Morality but like the other side, he rarely followed it, pushing his grief aside for the time being; for now he could channel the repression with the excuse that he very well might need to to get through this unscathed. The new side had so far been harmless, his imaginary victim not included, but in the few minutes Deceit had known him he had proved himself to be volatile and destructive. If he didn’t know Anxiety could take care of himself he would almost feel bad about leaving the two together. As it stood, though, he had bigger things to be worrying about than guilt over Anxiety’s feelings, like _finding_ the other two sides.

He wasn’t about to admit to the panic that flooded through him when he didn’t see them right away. His eyes mapped the trail of destruction across the room, following the floorboards that were splintered and scattered like leaf litter to the wall that he had inched along not ten minutes before. His hat was gone, he noticed, fuming, and there were a series of holes along the wall, trailing after the carnage that used to be their floor. The cushions from the couch confirmed the unfortunate path the two sides had taken and sure enough there they were. Behind their smoking TV, that ridiculous weapon poking out the top of it, the new half of Creativity sat lounging in Deceit’s spot on the couch. Anxiety was in his nest as usual but the way he was squatting in his corner couldn’t be called sitting.

Deceit took a moment, just a short one, to allow himself to despair for his future because if this was what it looked like he couldn’t be sure he wanted it. Blood was dripping down from Creativity’s nose though he didn’t seem concerned about it as he pulled tufts of stuffing from the armrest and popped them in his mouth like candyfloss. Anxiety had the back of the couch in a deadly grip with one hand and his own armrest in the other, ready to throw himself in whatever direction necessary if the other side so much as blinked at him again, something that, truth be told, he rarely seemed to do. He had his feet planted on the couch, a rather conspicuous bloodstain smudging out from under the sole of his boot that Deceit was sure would match up well with the amount of blood that would result from, say, kicking someone in the face. Not that he would know about such a thing, of course. For how tense Anxiety was, however, he didn’t seem to be scared or traumatised at all, just deeply unnerved as he watched the new side with unreserved, if disturbed, curiosity.

The situation seemed to be contained so Deceit rolled the tension out of his shoulders and settled them more naturally into what Anxiety referred to as his “corrupt businessman” stance, usually reserved for scoldings and special occasions. He ignored that the new side watched him do it. He prowled over to the pair, pausing at the television to glare and pull out the morning star imbedded in the top of it, barely managing because it was _heavy_. It hit the ground hard and awkwardly fast and Deceit felt some of the apprehension from before settle back into his frame, remembering the way the new Creativity had held the weapon like it was made of plastic, imagining how easily he might have swung it around in his absence. It was horribly unfortunate, the strain from the heavy lifting brought a flush to his cheek, but he was well equipped for channelling embarrassment into condescension so he cocked his hip, fixed his glare, and levelled it at the new side who wiggled under his gaze in a way that was not at all endearing.

“Anxiety, Creativity is-” He started only to be cut off.

“Remus.” Creativity butt in, grinning at the confused faces staring back at him. With a jerky flourish of his hand he touched his chest like a rat of an aristocrat and introduced himself properly. “My name is Remus. I like people to know what to yell when we’re-”

“OK!” Anxiety interrupted, his hands slamming onto his ears while his foot looked poised to strike again. “No! Just, no.” The new side, _Remus_ , didn’t looked deterred however; he actually looked more focused and present in the conversation than he’d been since he arrived now that they were definitively _not having it_.

“…Remus,” Deceit uncomfortably began again. “Will be staying with us.”

They were all silent after that, Anxiety understanding what that meant for the new side but Remus was just looking at them expectantly. Deceit watched the apprehension growing on Anxiety’s face and Remus’s gaze jumped back and forth between them. “So, you know _my_ name. What am _I_ meant to yell when we’re-”

“Stop it!” Anxiety burst in again, this time lashing out with his foot which Remus eagerly caught before it could make impact with his shoulder. Deceit could feel the pressure of a headache building in his mind as Anxiety started to thrash in Remus’s grip while the other side cackled, getting an idea he could have done without of what had caused the destruction to the rest of the room.

“Enough! Both of you calm down _now_.” Deceit had long since perfected his “I’m disappointed and I’m going to make sure you don’t like the consequences of that” glare and sure enough Anxiety began trying to yank his leg away. “Remus.” He warned, and the other side let go, laughing as Anxiety was flung back into his seat, looking delighted with himself and his new level of dishevelment. Supressing a sigh, Deceit turned the conversation back to the creative side’s question. “ _Wonderful_. Now, Remus, we don’t-”

He stopped and blinked as the new information settled into his mind like it had always been there, just waiting to be found, but Deceit’s identity felt like it was twisting and shifting before his eyes. A panicked glance towards Anxiety confirmed it. Anxiety was staring back.

They had names.

“Ooooh, are you two _already_ doing it?”

Deceit ignored him, and though Anxiety shot him a glare he did as well, looking terrified and a little excited. “I’m… Virgil.” He introduced, his eyes locked with Deceit’s. “My name is Virgil.”

Deceit felt like something had crawled into his throat and died there as he turned to look at Remus. Every instinct in his body was screaming. “I’m Deceit. You can call me Deceit.”

He tried but he couldn’t ignore the hurt and betrayal that stitched itself onto Anxiety’s face any more than he could ignore its echoes in his chest. He wanted to lie; the thought of something he’d never known before, something personal that he hadn’t even known for five minutes, coming out like this was terrifying, and the longer the silence went on the more conflicted he became about whether keeping the secret had been the right answer. He couldn’t get hurt if no one else knew, he’d lived by that motto his whole life, but now he’d kept his card close to his chest and felt cut with it anyway.

Remus didn’t seem to care about the tension in the room, happy to bolster on as Deceit avoided Anxiety’s eye. “Well, DeeDee, Virgy, who wants to see who can break the most bones at once? I’ll go first!” A mallet appeared in his hands and Deceit couldn’t tell if he was really this oblivious or if he actually was happy to exist in their turmoil. Either way, he didn’t have the patience for it.

“No! You’re not _breaking_ your bones.” He snapped, wishing he could feel grateful for having somewhere to direct his conflicting feelings but the other side was only piling more on. He wanted to close his eyes, to stop for a moment and process this rollercoaster of fear to grief to conflict and revelation and guilt, but the new side pressed on while Anxiety coiled in tighter around himself. The pressure in the room began to creep in and Remus buzzed with excitement under it as Anxiety’s emotions spiked around them.

“I wasn’t talking about breaking our _own_ bones, but I like the way you think!”

Any reply Deceit could think to conjure was cut off as Anxiety stood up sharply, snagging his attention. “I’m going to my room.”

Anxiety skulked away, his door closing harshly behind him as Deceit watched him leave, looking pained. Remus grinned, thriving in the tension.

“What’s up his butt? …or what _needs_ to be?” He leered after Anxiety, seemingly immune to the withering glare Deceit shot his way.

Deceit took a moment to breathe. He hesitated then for a moment longer before stalking down the hall, stopping in front of Anxiety’s door and knocking before he could talk himself out of it. There was no pulse of nervousness from the other side, Anxiety was clearly expecting him, and the door’s lock clicked loudly into place. He sighed and knocked again.

“An?”

No answer.

He was about to knock once more when he caught movement in the corner of his eye. Scowling, he turned to the new side who had followed him over and was now flanking him, a finger up his nose which he withdrew to point at the door.

“We goin’ in there?”

Deceit grabbed his arm and pointed it instead towards Remus’s own door. “How about you go in there. It would be _so much_ more fun.” Remus’s arm dropped off at the elbow like a doll’s and Deceit fumbled with the deadweight before fully realising what he was holding. Disgusted, he threw the arm down the hallway, forcing himself to look away from the limb as it rolled awkwardly towards Remus’s room as the Creative side had now danced closer to Anxiety’s door.

“Why? Are you telling secrets? Can I join in? I’ll go first!” Remus opened his mouth to scream out whatever secret he wanted to tell but Deceit was done listening to him for now. His head was splitting, he was trying to have a _moment_ , he already felt like he had potentially ruined the last one, and he _so_ wanted this one to go just as well. Did Remus’s hand need to smack that hard over his own mouth? No, it didn’t, but he just gives the command, how it’s received is not his problem.

Deceit gestured for Remus to stay quiet with a finger to his lips and an eyebrow raise before turning back to Anxiety’s door. “Ani?”

“Don’t call me that.” It was muffled but at least he was there.

“Anxiety,” He corrected, not daring to use his newly revealed name. He didn’t think he’d earned that yet. “I’m sorry. You shared personal information with me and it didn’t catch me off guard _at all_ because I- _love_ sharing. Sharing is caring, and I wasn’t feeling uncomfortable or anything because that would be ridiculous.” This was _totally_ going well. Completely going exactly as he had planned for this to go, and he definitely had a plan to continue with. “You were probably scared to tell me, but you did it, which is great, and I let you do it and then I let you down. Which is... less great. So, I’m sorry.” He took a breath and closed his eyes. He could do this. He _wanted_ to do this. He really, really totally wanted to do this.

“My name is Janus.” He did it. _Shit_. He peeked one eye open then the other when there was no response from the other side of the door and, if Anxiety hadn’t heard him then he was never telling anyone anything ever again. “…Anxiety?”

He wanted to feel the relief he knew was in him somewhere from stepping back onto equal ground with Anxiety but as the other side’s shuffling interrupted the silence between them his own anxiety only grew.

Finally, Anxiety opened his door, looking like he was trying very hard to stay mad. He crossed his arms and sulked and glared down at the floor but Deceit could have seen through the act without his ability to tell if he was lying or not.

“You didn’t have to tell me.” Was the first thing he said and the truth that Deceit could feel behind that statement allowed some of his relief to settle in.

“I know. I wanted to.” He insisted, catching Anxiety’s eye. He could see the concern that was still there and he was a little bit glad he hadn’t been the only one worried over this whole situation.

“You’re sure?” Anxiety pressed and for once Deceit didn’t roll his eyes as he reassured him.

“I am.”

“…And you’re not lying?”

“Would I ever?”

Anxiety huffed. “Right.” Deceit watched as Anxiety, _Virgil_ , he had to remind himself, shuffled in place before looking back down at the ground. “I’m sorry too. I was… embarrassed, or whatever…I didn’t want to make you feel like you had to tell me, I just didn’t want to talk to you.”

“I hope you’re aware of just how charming you are.” Anxiety shoved his arm and Deceit gave him a disgruntled scowl back, easily falling into their old rhythm and eager to push anything that could resemble sentiment behind them.

“So, Janus huh?” Anxiety asked, waiting for confirmation.

“ _No_.” He lied.

“That’s gonna be weird to get used to. But I think that might have been your best apology yet.”

“It’s hard to get good at something when you literally never have to do it.”

Anxiety rolled his eyes, snickering, but he cut himself off sharply, his eyes flashing and wide, when he spotted Remus behind Deceit. “Um!”

Deceit turned and quickly matched Anxiety’s shock at the sight of the other side frantically trying to chew through his hand, blood dripping from his chin to the floor as Deceit let his hand drop. His other arm had returned, the side clearly not caring about keeping up the illusion, and he grinned too wide between them. He looked deranged, more manic than he had since he’s gotten here, but for the first time he also looked scared.

“If you wanted to go first that badly you could have just said.” He announced, voice still loud and shrill but tense now, not feeling exactly like a lie to Deceit but artificial nonetheless.

“Well, if you had given me a moment to-”

“ _My turn!_ ” Remus cut in, powering on despite the other two’s winces at his volume. “I didn’t like that, and I don’t want you to do it again because if I can’t talk I can’t get the thoughts out and they need to come out because if they don't, I don’t know where they go and I _hate that_ , so please don’t do that to me again.”

Deceit was staring, lips parted and eyes wide, as he reached out to gently touch Remus’s shoulder. “Remus?” He snatched his hand back when the other side lunged to bite it but he didn’t back away. “Remus.” He called again, louder this time, and when he was sure he had his attention he continued. “I’m sorry. I promise I won’t do that to you again.” He could tell his eyes had glowed briefly from the curious way the other side stared back at him but he held his gaze regardless, feeling them settle back to normal as he watched the other side’s frozen face.

The silence stretched on, he could feel Anxiety getting tense beside him, but Remus eventually broke it.

“Did you know that kids have their adult teeth jammed up in their skulls above their baby teeth and they sit up there slowly pushing them out?” He asked, the wound on his hand slowly healing up and some of the blood on his face had cleared itself away. It had been excessive before, even for such a bad injury, and Deceit wondered briefly if he’d conjured more as he’d attacked himself but it was difficult to think past the mental image Remus had just conjured for him.

“I can’t say I’ve thought about.” He answered cautiously, not knowing exactly what to make of the change in conversation but taking it as a good sign.

“It makes them look like the kinds of demons that can unhinge their jaws and bleed you dry in seconds!” His grin looked more genuine now. The blood coating his teeth was unfortunate, but Deceit nodded along with him anyway, knowing that he was going to have to talk Anxiety down from this before he went to bed.

“I can imagine.”

“Would you rather see?” He looked thrilled; any traces of the distress he’d felt before seemingly gone as he bounced in place.

Deceit’s eyes flicked to Anxiety then back again. “Maybe not right this second.” And Remus took it in stride, leaning in close as if to tell a secret but still spoke at his normal volume.

“I’ll come get you later.” Deceit nodded, Remus copied him, and that seemed to be that.

With the promise sealed, Anxiety finally felt he could chime in, needing to be sure of their peace.

“And you’re ok now? Kind of?” He questioned, not fully enjoying having Remus’s attention focused back on him but worrying about him nonetheless.

“Oh, I’m just as keen as a worm in an old peach!” Remus affirmed with a wave of his hand.

“Oh. Um, great?” Anxiety asked, leaning back when Remus began to move but he just turned away, bouncing happily down the hallway and back to the living room.

“So what do we do for fun around here? Because I have a few ideas. Actually! _A lot_. I have _so many_ _ideas_ and we can do _all_ of them.”

Anxiety turned desperately to Deceit but the other side already looked resigned if not a little curious and he knew he wasn’t getting any help from him. So instead of despairing, he bolstered himself up, repeating like a mantra that maybe scrapping with Remus could be seen as fun and he probably wouldn’t die from it, and waited for Deceit to fix his cloak. With another quick look to the other, this time catching his eye, he couldn’t help a small shrug. This was their lives now, he guessed, and the quiet tut from Deceit confirmed that he thought he was being a bit dramatic but he agreed. Remus wasn’t going anywhere any time soon so they would need to find their new normal. But they wouldn’t find it out here.

Deceit began his elegant trail down the hall, Anxiety silently shadowing him, as they followed the new side to the living room.

“I hope the first thing on your list is fixing my couch, Remus. And if you wouldn’t mind, the rest of the room could use a spruce.”

“Like the tree?”

“A _clean_ , Remus. My floorboards are in the ceiling. And get that ridiculous thing out of my TV!”

“Since when is this all _your_ stuff?”

“This stuff is older than both of you, Ani.”

“Don’t call me that!”

“Look! I made it _alive_!”

“…Why?”

“ **I’m going to kill him**.”

“I’ve called him _Steven_.”

“If you fix my living room, _and get me my hat_ , you _can’t_ keep him.”

“ **I’m going to my room!** ”

“Bye Virgyyy!”

“I actually kind of like it.”

“He sings showtunes and he likes jazz~”

“ _Wonderful_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we have it! We're all here! We all have names! We have Steven, whatever he may be. I hope you guys liked this chapter, it's not as long as some of the others, mainly because it was meant to be the second half of the last chapter but, as I said, we're all here now. We're caught up! And we can shimmy on along. Going forward I will be using the sides' names (except when referring to the light sides when timeline-wise they don't know them) which will be so very nice because it is strange calling them anything other than their names.
> 
> But yeah! Come say hi on tumblr, I'm there under the same username as here, and please let me know if there are any issues or anything you feel need addressed in this chapter or in the tags. 
> 
> Also, quick edit, I did tidy up last week's chapter. Sorry about that again, nothing is different, it just reads a little better.
> 
> Again, I hope you guys enjoyed and I will see you next Tuesday (or maybe earlier because I have some more cute side ideas I might fire out) x


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dark sides all have a ways to go before they will ever comfortably co-exist but for the most part they're willing to try. Meanwhile, Virgil does battle with Janus's new pet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be aware that this chapter contains an anxiety attack and some bodily harm (unrelated). This chapter is pure indulgence on my part and Steven features heavily. I promise that it won't happen again and we will actually continue with the story from here on in. I hope you enjoy!

Virgil _hated_ Steven. He really, _really_ hated him, and Steven hated him right back. Apparently not being there on the day something was created was grounds to make you public enemy number one; this was a fact that Virgil hadn’t been aware of before Steven came around. Standing in his doorway, one hand gripped tight on the handle, Virgil didn’t think he’d felt the fight instinct rise in him so strongly without the fear to back it up.

Steven wasn’t big; he was a side table, emphasis on the _was_ because not only was Steven a side table, he was also every swept-up piece of floorboard and debris from Remus’s rather explosive entrance into the mindscape. He was squatted close to the ground, and every splitter of wood, every sharp edge to him, pointed _out_. Creeping around, belly flat to the ground, he rasped at anything and everything under him, leaving rough trails of scratches in his wake that could be tracked like slug slime. But if he wanted to, and he always wanted to when Virgil was around, he could lift himself up on his little coffee table legs and reveal, not the gentler mouth of a snail which could explain the jagged sounds of eating that filled Virgil’s nightmares, but the slicing teeth of a leech which made for an entirely unwelcome accompaniment to his dreams.

Steven was sat there, squatted, right outside his door, and it marked the fourth day in a row that he had been met with this obstacle. The past few times, he had retreated, closing the door and appearing instead in whatever room he needed to visit, safe in the knowledge that Steven wasn’t allowed on the couch and couldn’t reach the worktops. Every time his resentment of this creature grew, spurred on by the knowledge that the other two thought it was hilarious how much it hated him; that Janus had endeared himself to the wretched thing; that Steven was only animated when Remus remembered to animate him, and that he was most active when Virgil was near. He wasn’t giving in today. This ridiculous bug of an atrocity wasn’t gaining another inch of ground under his watch. Virgil stood tall, looming in his doorway, and when Steven bristled Virgil hissed, eyes flashing, unaware that Steven wasn’t scared; he was _ready_.

No sooner had the noise left Virgil’s mouth, the creature was up, spikes jutting out with clear, violent intentions. His body lifted up off the floor, his little maw snapping as a shrill whistle shrieked out of him and Virgil slammed his door shut.

“ **Janus!** ” He could hear Steven scratching up his door, every conceivable part of the creature sharp, like a carpenter’s sea urchin straight from hell, and he couldn’t risk his shins against it again, he just couldn’t. “ **Deceit! Get your _pet_ away from my fucking door!**”

Remus might have made him but there were no misconceptions about where his loyalties lay. Virgil heard Janus’s door open, and how the crack of a latch could sound casual he didn’t know but he could tell Janus was taking his sweet time in coming to his aid.

“Really, Virgil. I just _love_ these early morning wake-ups.” He tutted, and Steven let out a happy trill, scraping down then door, his lumbering gait scratching down the hallway after his favourite side. Virgil sunk down and appeared seamlessly in his spot on the couch, meeting the little troll that was the current bane of his existence with a sneer as he entered. The desk in turn reared up but in doing so gave Remus the opportunity to scoop underneath him. Summoned by the hostilities, he hoisted it into his arms, his piercing laugh stabbing through the room, matched equally by the screams of the beast wriggling in his grasp, lacerating arms, face, and torso, both of them thrilled with the contact.

“Remus, put him down. Stop bothering the poor thing.” Janus admonished as he settled himself on the couch, his space reluctantly having moved to the middle of the sofa as it quickly became apparent that Remus and Virgil could _not_ be left to sit beside each other without a brawl breaking out. Sometimes even the blockade couldn’t stop them.

Like now.

Virgil firmly and unignorably glared every ounce of disbelief that he held in his body into the side of Janus’s face. “The _poor thing?_ ”

Janus ignored him. “Steven is harmless, Virgil. Just think of him like a dog; if you treated him nicely maybe he would like you.”

“Yeah!” Remus agreed, tossing Steven to the side, and ignoring his whistled protest as he stood bleeding in the centre of the room. “Like a little puppy, with his little razor-sharp milk teeth, no comprehension of his strength or the limits of others as he bites down harder and harder-”

“Remus!” Janus interrupted, already scratching the centre of Steven’s “forehead” with a gloved finger, the sloping edge of the side table at the front of the beast being agreed to be its face despite its lack of eyes. And of course the wretched thing would flock immediately to the lying side, keeping a comfortable distance from his legs even as he rasped at the living room rug. “I don’t think you’re convincing Virgil to like him, and besides. He has much more character than that.” Steven trilled and for Virgil, more than the shrieking, the whistling, the discordant orchestra of noises that passed as jazz for Remus, that was the worst noise that Steven made because it always meant he’d lost. If Steven was happy, Virgil was just going to have to live with it and he did. Not. Want to. “Ah-ah!” Janus warned as the creature began lifting itself up the leg of the couch. “You know the couch is _totally_ within limits.”

Steven sulked back to the floor and wandered off, scraping away at rug and floor in his huff and Virgil stuck his tongue out after it.

“I don’t get it. Remus decides a demon can live in our house and that’s fine but if I criticise it-”

“Steven isn’t a demon!” Remus declared, eyes wild, excited, and that was almost the worst thing Remus could be. Janus felt Virgil’s tension spike around them and watched the immediate effect it had on Remus. It was going to take a while to perfect the art of dislodging Remus’s attention from the anxious side. The out-of-place Creativity didn’t have a purpose here, not like the other two. He created and was largely ignored, but for now seemed to just relish in that. Four days into his existence and Remus was still bubbling with every idea that hadn’t been allowed to develop past its infancy before, a pot set to boil that sat forgotten on the backburner. Janus didn’t have much hope for him settling down to a simmer any time soon so the problem he seemed to be battling every day was keeping Virgil out of the splash zone while he figured out how to get Remus a bigger pot. It was a problem that only crept up about five times a day, and maybe three times a night but who was counting?

Janus, at his core, was more adaptable than Virgil. What he couldn’t learn to live with for his own sanity, he excelled in pretending he could. Most of what Remus created was unpleasant, a lot of it interesting enough, and he quickly learned how best to react to the things he hated. Remus existed to push; push boundaries, push buttons, and Virgil was the kneejerk reaction that Remus so enjoyed inspiring. Virgil’s anxieties spurred Remus on. It wasn’t pretty, he didn’t _think_ it was malicious, and it had happened nearly every day since Remus got here.

Both Janus and Virgil could read the signs by now, Remus was gearing up for something and Virgil couldn’t help the mounting dread any more than Remus could resist it. Steven scuttled over to the rapidly deepening hole in one of the far corners, the only one in the mindscape that Janus allowed to remain damaged after the creature’s patrols, and began chewing down. His bed, for all intents and purposes, despite how he eager he was to get under it rather than in it.

Remus waited, grinning, eyes dark and his body tensed, and _Virgil_ waited, with every second that went by the tension around him growing. His eyes flashed and the anxious side snarled to keep the breathlessness of fear away. A tremor was settling deep in his bones. He wanted to move, he needed something to react to, but he had nowhere to direct fear except _out_ and it was so much worse than the jump-scares, stories, and disgusting facts that Remus usually came out with.

It was affecting Thomas. Janus noticed first, the other two too caught up in each other to tell, and the last thing that he needed right now was for Remus to know they could get out.

Virgil barely heard Janus’s scolding as the yellow-clad side jumped up from the couch towards Remus. His chest was seizing, his heart, lungs, all crushing together and between one blink and the next Remus was out of his line of vision and he barely saw the flash of yellow snapping through the creative side’s door before it slammed shut. He pressed his face into his knees and forced himself to breathe, to focus on the fabric beneath his skin; his jeans, hoodie, blankets; and not the creaking strain of his effect on the mindscape, even if that noise existed only in his own head.

With the room door now shut behind him, Janus found himself in the darkened sitting room he’d just left but everything about it was off, just wrong enough to confuse, to set off-kilter, before the rug was pulled completely out from underfoot. Remus didn’t look at home in his natural habitat, he looked like a threat to it. No different to how he looked outside of his domain but larger, more shadowed yet more vibrant, like an overexposed photograph. Light seemed to gleam from his grin yet he wasn’t smiling, his eyes were tracking Janus even when he looked away, creatures flocked around the walls, the couch, the owner of the room, until he looked at them properly and they were gone again.

He couldn’t tell the difference between the effects of the room and the results of own ability to see through the disguises. He couldn’t tell if it was intentional or not, but he knew he didn’t experience this in Anxiety’s room so surely the effects were put in place for _some_ reason. Regardless, he couldn’t stay long with the room as it was. The pressure behind his eyes was multiplying with every second that went past and he had come here with a purpose. A message.

The effects stopped.

A blessed reprieve for two seconds before the oddness of the still room began to creep into his subconscious. Everything was normal and yet again it wasn’t. The room he stood in now was a photograph. There wasn’t an ounce of life to animate a fleck of dust in the light, the hum of a bulb, the gentle, unconscious breathing of floorboards and support beams. Everything had ended so suddenly that Janus thought he might be next. Everything that kept them alive in this world, in Thomas’s mind, the imagination, had been paused, and Janus was struck with a terror he’d never had to think about before: would he disappear as well? Remus stood before him. He was living; the subtle shift of his eye, the silent rise of his chest, the hairs on his head pulsing with human movement were the only things breaking the air around them in a stillness that hurt Janus’s eardrums. A mindscape with none of Creativity’s influence. It barely existed.

Janus took in a shuttering breath and stepped towards the other side. He didn’t know what was coiling in his gut, if it was apprehension, relief, or fear, but he knew, as he always knew, that Remus was perfectly aware of every mask he wore and he put a new one on regardless. Readopting his earlier ire, he rounded on the creative being in front of him.

“Your game with Virgil _hasn’t_ run its course.” He began firmly, standing tall before the much stronger side and disregarding the humour in the eyes staring back at him. It was like talking in space, illogical as that was it was the only way he could think to describe the way his words left his mouth. There was no echo, he could almost see the sound as sharp and clear as the dust in the air, frozen in time like he could walk past it and reach Remus before it did.

“I _know_ ,” Remus gushed, and if speaking was strange in this vacuum, _hearing_ was something else entirely, a crash of noise that hit him at once yet made sense in his mind if not his ears. “I didn’t even have to do anything that time and he still got all twisty. I’d say it was too easy if it wasn’t so fun.” He began to wriggle in place, the movement stirring some of the dust flecks in the air but doing little to shift them. Janus couldn’t help see them, they were the only other thing in the room that moved, but even then they were quick to resettle themselves like the little planets on the solar system hung so proudly in Thomas’s bedroom.

Janus took the moment of distraction to steel himself, to make the checks in his mind and warp his words around his function. To speak plainly.

“That’s not what I-”

“I know what you meant, Yellow Voldemort.” Remus interrupted, ever unbothered on the outside but with a tension around his eyes and Janus hadn’t yet learned to read if it was frustration or anger. “I’m not stupid, I just don’t agree. Me and Virgy are having a bit of fun among friends!”

“Funny for you, Remus, doesn’t mean fun for him.” He kept his response clear for now. Remus was one big variable he wasn’t confident in engaging with and though his rebuttal didn’t please him, either what he’d said or the truthful way he said it, Janus was happier with that than being misunderstood.

“I feel like you’re trying to life-lesson me and it’s starting to get boring.” The drawl made Janus’s eyebrow twitch upwards, it was so rare to be on the receiving end of one. It was a little annoying, but he found he didn’t mind.

“And I wouldn’t _dream_ of boring you.” A little of his usual speech pattern, a toe in the water, and Remus looked immediately more comfortable in the conversation if no happier. He was an honest function, Janus knew that, but not in the way that the others were. He lacked a tendency to hide. Janus could spew out as many lies as he saw fit and he knew Remus would enjoy it much more than the careful manipulations of telling the truth. “But as I said, he isn’t enjoying this, Remus.”

“That sounds like more of a _him_ proble-”

“ _And when he gets scared_ ,” Janus interrupted his mumbling, “it affects Thomas. We can only do what we’re doing now if Thomas _allows_ us to. Don’t give him a reason not to.”

“So! _That’s_ what you’re worried about. And I thought it was the little storm cloud’s feelings. Don’t worry, Double D, I can be sneaky too.” He shimmied again and Janus cut in before he could be pulled off-track.

“Just- be _yourself_ Remus.” They were bordering on sentiment and they were both trying to dodge it but he needed to say this, just to get it over with. “I’m not asking you to change anything, I’d be rather concerned if you did. But _try_ to be mindful of Virgil? If you want to be friends then you’ll meet him somewhere in the middle. He’s trying for you.”

Remus rolled his eyes so hard it looked painful, and clearly it was because almost as soon as he finished his eyes blotted red at the edges, the capillaries flooding with blood. It was disgusting to watch but as with most things concerning the duke, it looked natural on him, like a feature that had been missing before and was finally found. Janus took his response, or lack of response really as the other side remained silent, for what it was and took his leave. Remus was done listening but he’d heard what he had to say. Whether he took it onboard or not remained to be seen but that was something only time would tell, and it was time that Janus preferred to spend in the rest of the mindscape. He turned towards the door and he had made it almost the full way there before the creative side spoke, some kind of record, Janus was sure.

“Are _we_ friends?”

It was spoken without much inflection, with little to read or be read into. Pure and open curiosity that demanded an answer with no expectations of what it should be. Remus could have been asking if it was raining, his face free from judgement; he just wanted to know.

Janus turned back to him with a smile, sardonic at first but slowly widening into something more genuine. “I don’t know what could _possibly_ have given you that idea.” At Remus’s snicker his smile twitched back into something much more like a smirk, his message received. “Next time you inevitably bother him and I have to break it up just remember that it wasn’t always for his benefit. He’s stronger than he looks.”

“Ooooh, sounds kinky!”

“I’m sure. What you did earlier wasn’t alright, but next time, if it’s anything like your usual pranks, maybe I won’t step in. You can call it bonding.”

“We won’t stop at bonding!”

Janus’s chuckles were drowned out by Remus’s cackling as he left the room. Instantly he was overwhelmed by the life that flooded his senses but it was a relief he was so ready for. He didn’t bother with the door, Remus rarely used it and it was more often than not agape and in some state of disrepair. When the creative side wanted privacy he made it, otherwise he tended not to care so neither did he. He went back to the living room to find Virgil where he’d been left, breathing deeply with his face between his knees but with the tension in his shoulders slowly easing away.

“I didn’t think that thing could get more horrifying.” He croaked when he heard Janus approach, and really, he knew Remus had hurt his feelings but the older side didn’t think he deserved to be addressed like _that_. He was about to call him out on it when Virgil lifted his head and nodded to Steven’s corner and yes, that made a little more sense.

Janus turned to see that in being left unchecked during his brief absence, the little beast had managed to chew himself a sizable hole in the floor; a hole that his jagged body was swiftly making bigger as he wriggled his way into it and dropped through. He would forever deny the spike of panic he’d felt when he watched what was certainly _not_ his pet drop down into what he assumed was the abyss under their house. Virgil’s huff of laughter went ignored. He was about to go to the corner when the shuffling rush of footsteps under the floor beat him to it.

“He’s been crawling around down there for a while now.” Virgil informed, tracking the sound beneath them with his eyes as he kept his feet tucked up on the couch. “I didn’t even know there _was_ a down there. Nowhere is safe from him.” And who could blame the flicker of affection that Janus had at that, he was a little menace to society.

He pulled his attention away from Steven’s happy scuttling and lifted his head to look at Virgil again, sweeping assessing eyes over his bunched up frame, his tired and shadowed eyes, before his expression softened. “Are you alright?”

Virgil shrugged, uncomfortable under the attention but smiled a little to show he appreciated the concern. “I don’t know. Probably.” He admitted thought they could both still feel the stress in the room. “I’m just gonna work on, y’know,” He waved an arm to gesture to the room, presumably meaning Thomas, “then I’ll figure it out. He didn’t actually do anything, I just overreacted.”

“You _reacted_.” Janus corrected and ignored Virgil’s huff. “He did what he does. You did what you to do. But if you _could_ calm it down a little-”

“I know.” He groaned. “I’m working on it.”

“Good. So is he. We’ll be happy families in no time.”

“I agree!” Remus yelled, appearing beside Janus as Virgil all but launched himself off the couch. “Just us three! Oop! A rhyme.”

Virgil scowled from the floor, his heart racing in his chest but Remus’s distraction actually seemed to work as one, some of the edge chipping off the atmosphere in the mindscape though neither Virgil nor Janus would be quick to call that a victory.

As Virgil dragged himself back up onto the couch, Steven crawled back out of his hole, summoned either by his creator’s excitement or the injustice of being excluded, and it gave Janus an idea.

“Remus?” The creative side’s head snapped round to face him and Janus suppressed the chill that wanted to go down his back at how loud his neck cracked with the movement. “Can you make a door here?” He asked, pointing to the wall away from the door leading to the bridge.

“Sha!” Remus threw out his arm and a hole exploded the wall, punching out into the nothingness beyond.

Janus breathed in through his nose and held it a moment. “A _door_ , Remus.”

A swinging gesture up with his arm and a window appeared. Janus didn’t even bother asking, he didn’t know where to begin. Levelling a flat, suffering stare at Remus he waited for him to explain; did he know what doors were? Was he doing this on purpose? Remus just grinned back.

“I prefer windows.” A blink and he expanded on his answer. “Windows can have doors.” He snapped his fingers and Janus refused to be baited into arguing whether or not windows which swung fully open could be described as doors.

“Be that as it may,” He said instead, ignoring Remus’s pouts and Virgil’s openly curious, and predictably suspicious, scrutiny, “It doesn’t quite fulfil the purpose I had in mind.”

“What purpose? It’s wasteland out there.” Came Virgil’s low voice because neither of them could just wait for an explanation, could they?

“You gonna jump?”

“He’s _not_ going to jump.”

“‘Cause you can jump from windows!”

“We’re not jumping! From anything!” Janus snapped, reigning them both back in.

“I _love_ that we can see the void now! I hope there’s stuff out there.” Or just reigning one of them back in.

“Back in the old mindscape, Creativity had this door.” He explained, pushing down the shard of hurt in his chest as he thought of the old side. He gestured instead to the door to the bridge. “It didn’t lead out into the void like that one, it went wherever you wanted it to go. As the new creativity, it can’t possibly be too far out of your ability to make one here, could it?”

Remus looked like he was about to explode with the prospect of creating something, with being _asked_ to. He turned to inspect his window, bouncing over to throw open one of the doors, and craned his head out. The other two watched but it was barely a second before he gave an excited squeal and threw himself out, his legs disappearing under the windowpane before Janus and Virgil could even begin to yell for him to stop. They didn’t bother with walking, both sides appearing at the open window just in time to see Remus pop back up onto his feet just in front of them having rolled out along the newly formed earth beneath him.

Virgil looked like he was going to be sick but Janus was smiling, _grinning_ , because it was _back_.

Remus let out a screaming laugh and _ran_. With every step he took the ground underneath grew and he just kept going, his laughter ringing around the space that he was creating around him, forever shifting as his imagination ran wild with him.

The Imagination.

Janus could barely believe it. He turned to Virgil and found himself being watched, a confused but pleased smile on Virgil’s lips and in his eyes that brought his attention back to his own aching cheeks. His face flushed as he cleared his throat and smothered down some of his grin though he could feel it still pulling traitorously at his mouth.

“That should keep him entertained for a while.” He commented, trying to sound casual and resenting Virgil’s snickering which confirmed he’d failed. “Maybe things will be quiet here for more than three minutes, now.”

“Mhmm, you going out there with him?” Was his only reply, Virgil not even putting in the tiniest bit of effort to play along.

“…Well, someone should keep an eye on him.”

“Someone probably should, yeah.” Virgil was smirking beside him, he could see it out of the corner of his eye. Just like he could see the way he had wrapped his hoodie around himself like a hug.

“You’ll be alright alone?” He asked, going for aloof but he couldn’t help the concern that settled under his words and didn’t really mind if Virgil could hear it.

“Yeah, I’d actually like to try that ‘quiet’ thing you were on about earlier.”

Sometimes, he didn’t know why he bothered. “Charming.”

Virgil just shrugged and waved him towards the window. “Go, have fun. Just- come back. Before it gets dark. And make sure you have Remus. And he’s in one piece.” He opened his mouth to add more but his hand quickly covered it instead. Scowling, he continued mumbling into his hand as the yellow-clad side gave a wave of his fingers and gracefully hopped out into the imagination.

“Love you too, Virgil!” Janus sung before hurrying off after Remus, leaving Virgil to drop his hand and smile through his flushed cheeks as he made his way back to the couch. Settling down in his spot, Virgil wouldn’t have believed he was alone if it weren’t for the silence. Their home had never been silent before. Hell, it hadn’t been _quiet_ since Remus got here, never mind silent. And he’d never been alone before. Well. Almost alone.

Steven shuffled away from where he’d been inspecting the new window, unable to really reach it but curious nonetheless. Virgil watched as he wandered aimlessly before it set a course directly to him, and of course, why _would_ he get some peace for the first time in his life? He tucked his legs up as far from the edge of the couch as he could as he watched Steven amble ever closer, too tired to pull up his defences, instead choosing to keep a quiet vigilance over the beast as it snuffled and scraped at his feet.

It wasn’t until it started whining that Virgil thought to address it.

“He’ll come back, you know.”

Steven just whined louder, rasping furiously at the rug the way a dog might chew up slippers when its owner was gone.

“I know you’re worried, or you miss him, but I promise he’ll be back soon. Probably.” The last part was just under his breath but he focused on the creature, preferring that to letting his mind linger too long on that particular source of stress. “It’s going to be fine.” He told the room, watching as Steven seemed to settle at his words, if only for a moment, before he began trying to climb up the couch.

“W-wha- no. No! Down!” The little beast pulled threads, fabric and stuffing loose from the couch as it scrambled up with its jagged legs and Virgil was helpless to stop it. He was too sharp to shove off and had no regard for any authority Virgil pretended to have. Soon enough he was up and scooting, belly-flat, over to Virgil’s end of the couch, stopping with just enough distance between them to keep from impaling him.

“You know you’re not allowed up here.”

Steven whined.

“What, are we meant to be friends now?”

He whined louder.

“You don’t get to chase me for four days and then mooch in because I’m the only one here to give you attention.”

A shrill whistle and another scootch over brought him dangerously close to stabbing territory and Virgil was forced to relent.

“Fine! Fine. How does he…” Staring at Steven’s splintered ‘head’, Virgil took a moment to figure out how, exactly, he was supposed to do this. He didn’t have gloves handy like Janus, and he cared an awful lot more about bodily harm than Remus did, so he met somewhere in the middle and tugged his hoodie sleeves down over his hands and gave beast a tentative scratch like he’d seen Janus do in the past few days. Immediately, he began to trill, a noise that Virgil had never had directed towards himself, and Steven headbutted up into his hand. He didn’t seem to care too much about Virgil’s yelp of pain but, to his credit, he didn’t do it again, instead settling down onto the couch with a happy whistle as Virgil resumed his pets.

It was a few hours later when Janus and Remus returned, the older side throwing the giggling and injured younger through the window before climbing through himself. “He’s fine!” He called out before Virgil could so much as sit up with worry. “It’s fine, he’s fine.” Hauling Remus’s arm up over his shoulders, Janus was dragging Remus over to the bathroom without so much as a second look over to Virgil as the creative side waved happily and staggered along behind him. “But if Steven is still on that couch when I get back there _won’t_ be a problem!”

The threat wasn’t necessary, Steven had tumbled off with an excited shriek as soon as he’d realised Janus was back, scrambling after the pair as Virgil covered his eyes and worked on getting his heartrate back to normal.

He listened to the sink running, to Remus’s excited ramblings of whatever adventure they had just been on, of Janus’s “Steven, you are being _so_ helpful right now”s, and allowed himself a moment to just laugh and exist in the chaos that was their bizarre little family.

Eventually Janus returned, hair wet as he scowled at the ruined couch. A snap of his fingers and it was fixed before he’d even sat down, Remus, drenched but bandaged up, following soon after.

“So…” Virgil began but Janus cut him off by snatching the TV remote and pressing play on the film Virgil had been watching before they’re returned.

“Not a word.” He warned, and Virgil laughed but shut up as instructed, listening instead to Remus’s recounting of their wonderful, disastrous adventure throughout the entire second half of Lilo and Stitch.

When Remus asked for it to be played again as soon as it had ended, Janus acquiesced, marking the start of a battle that would rear its head before almost every movie night the three would have going forward- who’s favourite film was going on first? And though they griped when they lost and rubbed it in when they won, none of them would change it for the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Steven has a very special, very spiky little place in my heart. As I mentioned, he probably won't come up again, this was not the chapter I had intended to write (I had actually already nearly FINISHED the chapter I'd intended to write) I just couldn't help myself. And it allowed for a more casual idea of what they get up to than what I had originally planned so I'm honestly a little pleased with it. If you love Steven like I love Steven, take some joy in the knowledge that he is very happy in the crawlspace.  
> We're starting to make our way into the videos' timeline now! That's going to be work so I just want to say now, in the off-chance it happens, that updates might take a tiny bit longer to come out. I'm hoping not! I'm just saying it in case they do. And as always, I might get some shorter things fired out, should be one coming really soon, and I'm on tumblr under the same username so come say hi!  
> I hope you enjoyed and I'll see you next week!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remus has found something weird, and not HIM weird, and that deserves an investigation. Janus only marginally agrees, and they adventure once again into the Imagination.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, warning update for this chapter, there is some fantasy violence with a little bit of gore going alongside it. Enjoy!

“Janus!”

There might come a morning in their half of the mindscape that didn’t start with some variation of this one call.

“Dee-Dee!”

“Deceit!”

“Double-D!”

“JJ Style!”

“Bananaconda!”

One day. Maybe. And really, after the rediscovery of the Imagination, Janus really had dared to hope that that day might have been today.

Remus was on a warpath. Yesterday’s bandages lay discarded in the living room, snagged on the latch of the window, with a little trail of them breadcrumbing a path into the Imagination’s woods. Exploding out of his bedroom, the creative side was fortunate in his timing. Set into the opposite wall was Virgil’s door, the anxious side audibly preparing himself to exit the room, though this morning the usual source of his terror was nowhere to be seen. Remus could fix that.

With Janus’s warning and promise both still fresh in his memory, and with little time to prepare because he had a _mission_ , he vibrated in the doorway, eyes flashing continually to Deceit’s room. By the time Virgil had opened his door, Remus was incapable of more than the excited growl that came out of his throat as he thrust his hand up in front of Virgil’s face. The anxious side reared back, his arms shot out, and they almost collided with his own before he noticed what was sitting in his hand.

“Ah-haha _haa_!” Remus shrieked, but gentle hands cupping into his clawed palm broke him from whatever tirade he hadn’t fully planned on delivering.

Virgil’s eyes had just finished settling into their normal brown, the shadows that had shot down his cheeks inching back up as he carefully lifted the tarantula from Remus’s grasp. It wasn’t a particularly original scare tactic, Remus was in a _rush_ , but he hadn’t anticipated this. Now, instead of cackling and making his escape or engaging in what he’d been promised would be a spectacular wrestling match, he was left watching, awkwardly frozen, as Virgil looked back up at him with an unhealthy level of trepidation tinged with awe.

“You know, this isn’t how people usually give gifts.” Virgil stated, and if that wasn’t the strangest thing anyone had ever said to him what was? “But thank you.” Scratch that, there was another contender.

“Can you make me a tank for her?” The middle side asked as he carefully, _and it would be so easy to not be careful_ , stroked the spider’s legs. He stopped when he noticed the empty way Remus was staring at him with his eyes wide and unblinking and his defences crept back up, but Remus gave a dutiful flourish of his hand and a terrarium materialised balancing on top of his fingertips.

Virgil’s hand was more awkward than the self-assured grace that Remus seemed to naturally hold himself with. He scooped the tank into the crook of his arm, cradling it against his chest as he kept his hand with the spider steady and secure. With one last cautious glance over the creative side he gave a smile and allowed his attention to be redirected to his new pet. “Thanks, Remus.”

Two thank you’s in one day. Incredible. “You’re welcome?” The door shut softly after Virgil and Remus stood, just for a moment, on the other side of it wondering where exactly he’d gone wrong. Right?

Janus’s door opened and the whole interaction was forgotten, his attention snapping faster than a DIY bungee cord to the other side. “Dee-Dee!” He screeched before he could get distracted, his mission burning once again in the forefront of his mind. “I need your help!”

“I can’t wait to hear why.” The dry response was thrown into the hallway, the deceitful side not even bothering to glance Remus’s way as he made his way to the kitchen. Remus just trotted after him.

“I found something outside!” He announced.

“Outside?” Janus set the kettle to boil before finally turning to look at Remus. The newest side was filthy and his bandages from yesterday were long gone but at least his injuries were too. “Were you in the Imagination again? Remus, it’s eight in the morning, when did you even go?”

“Doesn’t matter! I _found_ something.” He singsonged, wriggling closer to Janus who sighed and nudged the kettle further back, just in case. “I need your help with it.”

Janus caught his face in one hand and pushed him back a few steps. “If it’s in the Imagination then you probably made it. I can definitely see, then, why you need _my_ help.”

“It’ll be fun?”

“I’m _loving_ the uncertainty.”

Remus switched tactics, waggling his eyebrows suggestively, undeterred by the disgusted face staring back at him. The moment dragged out between them until it became clear that Remus wasn’t going to stop until Janus gave him an answer.

Janus threw his hands up in defeat and Remus was trying to drag him to the window before he could even put them down again. “Alright, but not right now.” He acquiesced, tugging his arms free and swatting away any attempts to get another hold of him. “After breakfast. No buts-”

“Yes butts!”

“I’m not going anywhere before I’ve eaten something.” With that he turned back to the kitchen, Remus once again uncomfortably close on his heels as he set about making breakfast for the two of them. It was simultaneously one of the longest and shortest meals of his life. Remus didn’t sit still for a second and Janus had spent more time pulling things out of the younger side’s mouth than making him actual, edible food. Within fifteen minutes he was pounding on Virgil’s door, no longer hungry but hardly satisfied, with his cape replaced by a thin jacket and his hat on his head, waiting for Virgil to answer while Remus bounced a hole into the floor by the window.

Virgil opened the door, his new pet nestled on his shoulder, and he barely spared Janus a glance. “Sup.”

“We’re going to the Imagination.” Janus informed, face blank as Remus bellowed at him to hurry up from the living room. “Remus wants to show me something.”

“Sucks to be you.” Virgil smirked, already waving goodbye and closing over the door. “Try to bring him back in fewer pieces this time.” The door shut and again Janus was throwing his hands up, storming his way over to Remus.

“I don’t know why I try. With either of you.” He didn’t get an answer. Remus was already gone, having dived out as soon as Janus had reappeared in the doorway, and Janus begrudgingly clambered out after him. “So what is it, exactly, that you wanted to show me?”

“Oh, it’s miiiles away.” Remus answered, storming off into the woods around them. “So I want to keep it a secret.”

“And I’m sure that means it is wonderfully big and impressive and not at all something that I would refuse to go see if you’d told me.” He griped, following after the over-excitable side, moving faster than he would have liked but he’d learned yesterday that there was no stopping the duke once he had a destination in mind.

Remus kept up a running narrative of… something, it was hard to tell from a distance, but his voice carried and that was enough for Janus as more often than not Remus was out of sight. Running off and back again, taking detours whenever Janus fell far enough behind, his stories and comments streaming through the trees as Janus picked his way along the trail. The forest wasn’t particularly interesting itself. It was darker than it should be, tall enough to be intimidating, but it was repetitive. If he was alone it would be a problem. Personally, he wasn’t sure how Remus was navigating this place and he wasn’t stupid enough to ask. The forest wasn’t the creative side’s main focus anyway. That was reserved for the “glades.” Remus was steering Janus clear of them but had no qualms about dipping in and out himself, and Janus similarly had no issues with poking his head in as he passed.

The paths leading into the clearings were barely discernible, grass and underbrush disturbed just enough by Remus’s wanderings to be visible if you knew where to look, but there was little to suggest he’d ever been to any of them before today. Whenever the entrance to one of the glades was close enough for Janus to approach without losing the main path, it was like peering into a world he had absolutely no interest in being a part of. The insides were always the same in that all the pieces moved too fast, like a memory of a place that was trying to build itself up while fading around the edges. Sometimes there were characters, spitting out clouds of lines to each other instead of words, dialogues to be filled in later, but usually it was just a place; a hall, a trench, a dungeon, a _scarier_ dungeon; each of the rooms flickering, the décor changing at the speed of thought. The only exception he’d seen was a bog that Janus faintly remembered Remus announcing he was working on, the details of that space fleshed out right down to the smell.

They had been walking for about an hour when he caught up with Remus, or rather, Remus caught back up with him. The dizzying swirl of daydreams he had been inspecting had lurching forward to meet him, throwing his body into the scene as Remus’s arm slung over his shoulder. “No peaking!” He’d scolded as he pushed the decidedly greener Janus out of the clearing and back onto the path. “It’s not done yet.” Janus kept a cautious distance from the paths after that and Remus, thankfully, had slowed down enough to let him keep pace. He still darted around, probably doing two miles for every one that Janus did, but instead of following now, Janus just took the moment to rest, glancing idly around the woods and trying to pick out anything that could suggest they were moving in a specific direction and not just bouncing around in a circle like he half expected they might be.

At the sound of movement behind him he turned, fully expecting Remus to emerge from the nearest treeline. The fleshy, lumbering creature in the distance on his own side of trees was something he could have done without. He watched as it disappeared into the gloom, holding his breath until Remus inevitably burst from his clearing and he matched his pace immediately.

“Remus?” He started before the other side could begin expounding on the latest idea he’d brought to life. “How much danger are we in right now?”

Remus shrugged. "Usual amount."

"Hmm." Janus accepted, nodding along. He had only been here once before but he didn't enjoy those odds. "I used to come here with Creativity." He told him, and their surroundings became a little darker as they took an abrupt turn, dodging a shrivelling patch of earth before gradually making their way back to their original course. Maybe they actually _were_ going in a specific direction.

"Oh yeah?" There was a defensiveness in Remus’s tone that put Janus on guard. The creative side was masking something, he could sense the lie floating around those two little words, but he couldn't tell what it was. A sideways glance revealed that Remus wasn't looking back at him but he felt he had his full attention anyway. He took a second to roll that around in his mind before continuing.

"Yes," He started. Casual. "I had a sword then." And commented no further.

Immediately whatever tension Remus had been cloaking himself with was lifted and his head snapped around to face him, eager and excited. "I can make you a sword!" He boasted, reaching up with one hand before swinging it down again towards Janus.

Janus barely had a second to react, a broadsword materialising in the wake of Remus’s swing, the handle landing heavy in his defensively raised hand. The second passed and Remus let go, and the sword hurtled down into the ground, nearly ripping Janus’s arm free with it.

“A small sword, Remus!” He yelled, tearing his hand away and cradling his shoulder as if to check it was actually still attached to him as Remus laughed. The sword remained standing beside him, the blade imbedded in the ground. “I’m not quite as strong as you. Brute strength is _totally_ my thing.”

“Oh, d’you want a kiddie sword?” Remus asked, heaving the broadsword out of the ground with one hand. By the time it was presented to Janus once again it had shrunk in both size and mass, a foam blade being offered between them.

Janus huffed but a smile was twitching at the corner of his lips as he took it, giving it an obliging swing. “Cute, but it was a little more like this.” With a flourish of his hand which he was _definitely_ sure he’d pull off, the sword became longer and thinner, sharpening itself to a deadly point which cut clean through the air, the meagre light in the woods glinting off the steel. It was shorter than a rapier bur much bigger than a dagger, better for a stealthy attack than a full-on fight. For once he wasn’t going to lie, it had been Janus’s favourite thing about the Imagination. He felt that familiar thrill rush through him as he inspected his weapon and really, he should try to incorporate something like this into his outfit because he didn’t think anything could beat the feeling of being armed in such a fabulous way.

He held it up to show Remus who was vibrating with more than his usual amount of excitement, conjuring his morning star and holding it at his side.

“That’s fun!” He complimented, grinning. “I can’t _wait_ to see what you’ll do with it against _that_!” And that was probably the last thing that Janus wanted to hear.

“Against what?” He asked, wilting, and he really wished he hadn’t. Then he heard it.

A throaty roar trembled through the ground, ran up his feet and settled deep in his chest, dislodging his organs and the breath from his lungs. Janus turned away from Remus just in time to see the creature before it begin its four-legged charge.

Janus barely had time to take in the sight before Remus had flung an arm around his waist. He yelped as he was lifted into the air, Remus spinning him away from the danger with a mad cackle as he used the momentum to swing his morning star into the side of the beast’s face. It crashed to the side with another roar, recovering quickly and lashing out with a meaty paw that Remus happily dodged, leaving Janus to roll out of the way to avoid being battered.

The beast was huge and Janus had no idea what it was meant to be but he hated it. Shaped roughly like a bear but so much bigger, it was built of muscle and fat, nothing of the shape of its skeleton showing through the layers of hairless flesh that covered it from head to toe. It made to follow Janus who scrambled to get himself off of the floor but it cut off its pursuit with another roar, lumbering around to face Remus who had swung again, trying to shatter its knee. Janus clutched hard to his sword, Remus wasn’t kidding when he said he was curious what he would do with it; he was wondering much the same thing as he lunged out, swiping along its side and barely leaving a scratch. The creature mashed its teeth at him, each of them flat instead the carnivorous jaws he was expecting which somehow only made them worse.

Remus took another swing at its knee, this time the bones giving way under the blow, and the creature staggered to the ground, lashing out with another club of a paw which Remus met easily with his morning star. From his position at the side, especially now that the monster was down, Janus couldn’t help but wonder why the beast had attacked in the first place. It was big, and it was clearly strong, but beyond that it didn’t seem to have any means of fighting back. Remus crashed the morning star into the beast’s hip and dodged away around the back of it as it tried to catch him, and Janus felt an uncomfortable knot tightening in his throat.

It didn’t seem like Remus had any intention of killing it as he laughed and took another swing at its other side. If anything, he looked like he was playing, a too-smart predator left to get bored in a cage. Janus felt sick. He adjusted his grip on his sword and hurtled it into the creature’s neck, the only place he felt it had any hope of piercing, and the weapon buried itself to the hilt in its throat. It crashed flat on the ground and Remus landed a finishing blow to the centre of its head, finally ending it.

Janus caught his breath as Remus’s head popped out from behind the beast.

“Too much?” He asked, taking in Janus’s greying face with open delight.

Janus lifted his hand up in a pinching gesture, the “just a little” not needing to be said. Remus laughed and rounded the beast, his morning star laying forgotten and disappearing in an instant as the creative side’s focus narrowed in on Janus’s own weapon. He pulled it out with ease, allowing the blade to widen and lengthen as he did before handing it over to Janus. He took it uneasily, shaking the worst of the blood from it as Remus spoke.

“That _was_ fun, but if you’re going to get _squishy_ then you might want to learn to use it like that instead.” Remus turned away then, banishing the corpse, and continued his trek through the woods. Janus hurried after him, dodging the blood that still stained the forest floor as he fell in line behind the other side and swung the sword around himself in careful, overly controlled motions. It was still light, and balanced perfectly, but he’d only ever used the shorter version and the extra length made him nervous.

“Will you teach me?” He asked, smacking into Remus’s back when he stopped suddenly. Immediately Janus’s defences flew up but Remus’s head just twisted round to meet him with a grin.

“Do you want me to?” And there was that enthusiasm again that Janus wasn’t entirely sure what to do with but he was starting to get an idea. Remus didn’t seem to be the type to seek approval but he seemed to be eager for his participation.

Janus, still startled, managed a scowl. “No, I asked to let you down cruelly.”

“Even juicier!” Janus rolled his eyes and prepared to have to steer Remus back onto their current mission when the other side surprised him again by pointing himself back down their path. “It’ll have to wait though because we’re nearly here!”

Forging on ahead, Remus had a new dangerous energy to him, the violence of before and the promise of more later riling him up and making Janus nervous for what was still to come. Remus was right, there wasn’t much further to go. They passed one series of repeating trees, marked by one of the more recognisable trees that Janus had noticed, and then they were standing in the mouth of one of Remus’s clearings. The forest stretched on as it always had on every direction as Remus marched into the clearing, stopping with a flourish in the middle.

“Ta-da!”

“It’s… a door.” Ornate and painted red, the slab of wood stood proud, set into a doorframe and nothing else. It was a warm and bold anomaly, rich instead of ghastly, with gold accents desperately trying to glint in the gloom.

“Better! It’s a _mystery_ door.”

Janus turned back the way they came, fully prepared to find his own way home but was stopped by Remus grabbing his arm and spinning him back around. “Are you seriously telling me you brought me all this way to show me a door you could have made anywhere? Because you definitely _couldn’t_ have shown me this closer to home.” He complained, Remus roughly leading him back.

“I hate this door!” Remus announced, eyes unblinking as he threw his arm over Janus’s shoulder to hold him in place in front of it. “It’s so boring, there’s nothing leaking out of it, and I would never pick a colour as dumb as that.”

“You didn’t make the door.” Janus confirmed rather than asking, not sure what the significance of that was. He didn’t know why Remus was bothered by the door so much but Janus himself couldn’t move past an unanswered question easily.

“Nope.”

“What’s on the other side?”

“Dunno, couldn’t open it. Couldn’t break it, couldn’t move it, it’s just there.” He paused, his eyes boring into the wood with all of the violent intent he couldn’t enact on it. There were craters dug into the ground around it, explosions that had torn through rocks and roots. Shattered stones littered around, with the door pristine in the middle. “I thought you might since you’ve been here longer.”

Janus eyed him for a moment before stepping out from under his arm, fixing his jacket as he circled the door, inspecting it for any kind of clue. By the time he was back in front of it he could conclude that it was a nice door, much nicer than anything he would expect to see in Remus’s domain, and he had no idea what it was doing there. He glanced down at the handle.

“And this isn’t some kind of joke?” He checked but he already knew the answer.

“If this were a joke something would be on fire by now.”

He tried not to think too hard about it as he reached out, Remus would _probably_ protect him if anything went wrong, and turned the handle. It gave way easily under his hand and floated open, feather-light, into a meadow.

Golden sun died in the doorway, interrupted only briefly by picture perfect, fluffy clouds that passed through the richest blue sky Janus had ever seen. Flowers dotted the fields like spilled glitter, a rainbow of colour that barely looked real. It was like staring into a Disney movie come to life, so uncannily similar he would be surprised if it survived a copyright dispute. He chanced a peek further in, leaning through the doorway and feeling clean, fresh air replace the damp of the forest, but didn’t dare take a step. Until a rough hand pushed him through.

Janus stumbled into the meadow, panic replacing any curiosity he might have felt, as he spun back with a snarl to see Remus hopping through.

“Well this is gross.” Remus complained, barely sparing him a glance as he bounded in behind him, the grass wilting under his feet. “Who would have thought it was a push door.”

“You didn’t even-” Janus’s spluttering was interrupted by a shout from the distance. It was human so Janus didn’t bother getting into an attack position, a sentiment not shared by Remus who hefted up his reconjured morning star with an unsettling amount of excitement.

Fixing his clothes, he straightened himself up and waited for the owner of the voice to come into view. Two figures appeared from behind one of the whimsical, rolling hills and Janus despaired as the baby blue polo finally began to come into focus beside the blinding white of the outfitted person beside him.

“Deceit!” Morality called, and Janus couldn’t hear the gasp but he was almost entirely sure there had been one. The other side sounded unbearably hopeful, surprised as he began to run towards him but with every step he took Janus felt nothing but rising dread and irritation. Still, when the other side reached them, the new side dressed like a prince keeping easy pace, he reached a hand up to keep Remus’s morning star from swiping through them like a bat in the hands of a particularly angry youth swinging at a pinata. From the look on Morality’s face and the defensive stance the new side had taken, they had noticed.

“Deceit.” Morality breathed out again, his worried gaze roaming over him like he was a lost child who had finally come home, but he stalled there, not knowing what else to say.

“Morality.” He returned coolly, moving his own attention to the new side. The other creativity. It had to be. And he didn’t look happy.

“It’s Patton! Actually. Um, we have names now! This is Roman, he’s-” Morality’s introductions sputtered out and a quick glance to the side showed that Remus had clearly gotten bored of standing silently and was picking chunks of flesh from his weapon, having not bothered to clean it from their battle before, and dropping them to the ground. Now that he was actually looking at the creative side, a _lot_ of evidence from the fight was painted across him and Janus briefly wondered if he looked the same. A quick snap of his fingers cleaned both of them up and he turned away from Remus’s pouts to fix his attention to Roman, composed as ever.

“Charmed.” Roman met his gaze dead on, challenging and bold and with his defences held high. Janus raised an eyebrow. “Is your issue with the scales, the weapons, or just us in general?” He asked, cool as a breeze, and enjoyed the coil of satisfaction in his chest as Roman bristled. He was only slightly disappointed when he calmed under Morality’s hand.

“We came here to inspect that door. We didn’t expect anyone to come out of it. Much less anyone who meant us harm.” Roman accused, shooting a pointed glare at the ring of decaying foliage now spotted with flesh around Remus’s feet.

“I think it looks better this way!” Remus chimed in, raking predatory eyes over of the sides, tempted by Morality’s discomfort but drawn inevitably to his brother’s combative stance. “Gives the place something interesting to look at. A bit of a story, right Broner?”

Janus kept his confusion to himself and observed the creative sides, Morality’s animated mimicry of the action difficult to ignore. Neither of them had been aware the other two already knew each other.

“Coming in here and _ruining_ things isn’t _storytelling_ , Thomanian Devil.” Roman snapped, and Janus watched as their surroundings began to twist in response to the slight as Morality tried to make peace between them. A little grove of trees had appeared off to the side, beautiful but shady, a smudge against the perfect landscape.

“Have you two already met, kiddos?” The tentative question pushed its way past a shaky but determinedly genuine smile though Morality looked squeamish addressing Remus. Janus shouldn’t blame him, but he did.

“No.” Roman snapped, a terrible lie laid out for all to see as Remus answered, “He’s my brother!” at the same time.

“O-oh!” Surprise once again coloured Morality’s tone, this time brightened with excitement that Janus was almost upset was about to be stomped out. “Well that’s a good thing, right?”

Janus levelled him a pitying stare as Remus outright laughed at his enthusiasm and Roman looked on, betrayed.

“Oh, Cow-Pat, you are a _hoot_.” Remus crooned, heaving the morning star up onto his shoulder, narrowly missing the deceitful side, and leering at Roman when his brother raised his own weapon in return.

“Be that as it may,” Janus finally interrupted, wrapping a hand around Remus’s forearm and taking a step back, turning him in place like a spring-loaded music box. “We had better be going. We were merely investigating our side of the door as well, hardly a cause for violence. _Love_ your designs over here, Roman, it’s like stepping into a laundry detergent ad. Not overwhelming at all.”

“Thank you?”

With that, Janus gave a wave of his fingers over his shoulder, steering Remus back through the doorway even as the other’s head rotated around to keep his eyes locked on the light sides. The stale air of the forest sank deep and heavy in his lungs as soon as they were through, the mildewy smell smothering the fragrant field in an instant.

“Deceit?” Morality called after them, and Janus already had a hand on the door when he faced the other side once more. With Remus shifting to drape heavily over his back, he mentally pleaded for the moral side to hurry up, hoping he at least vaguely understood that he’d made his retreat for good reason. Morality’s eyes caught on Remus, his manic grin side-by-side with Janus’s blank indifference. The darker creativity was watching his brother and didn’t bother to conceal his excitement or the twitching of his fingers around the handle of his weapon which, having been slung over Janus’s shoulders with his arms as the duke himself plastered flat to his back, was weighing him down. His gaze drifting down, Morality spotted how Janus was straining to keep the two of them upright, the slight tremble in his tense limbs, despite there being nothing on his face to indicate he was struggling.

He forced a smile, one Janus was very familiar with, though this one was either more inviting than usual or their distance had made them softer. “Can we maybe talk later?” He asked, his tone unbearably gentle, and Janus could feel his arms begging to give out.

“Maybe.” He answered with no intention of meeting him anytime soon. He closed the door and ducked out from under Remus’s arm, taking a bitter joy in the force with which the duke collided with the wood.

“Trust you to find the edge of the Imagination on your first day in it.” His tone was cold and he didn’t bother to wait for Remus to peal his face from the door before he began storming his way back home.

Remus caught up a few minutes later, absently following as Janus blazed a trail to who-knows-where, crafting a path ahead of them that should eventually lead them home. By then he had largely calmed down, untangling his feelings from being confronted with Morality, _Patton_ , again, and combing through the new information he’d learned so he could address it again when he wasn’t in the middle of a wood. Once he’d become aware of Remus behind him, and confirmed that it was actually him, he slowed his pace so he was walking beside him. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. You _definitely_ deserved it.”

If Remus had heard him he didn’t answer. It wasn’t often that Remus ever bothered to respond to apologies, seemingly happy to just receive them and move on, but it suddenly marked Janus as odd that Remus wasn’t speaking at all. That almost never happened and he was about to address it when Remus broke the silence.

“What was he like?”

“I love it when we have these conversations where we both totally know what we’re talking about.”

“The old Creativity. Your one. From before.” He elaborated, his eyes as bright as ever but lacking his smile. It was the second-most serious Janus had ever seen him.

“Oh.” Janus was learning to not expect anything that left Remus’s mouth but still, the question caught him off guard. “Why?” They continued to crunch along the path, neither one paying particular attention to where they were going, but the sun was fixed above them and the most light that had been allowed through the trees since they’d gotten here, the midday rays clearing away some of the gloom while deepening the shadows around them. Remus had unconsciously begun to steer them again, twisting the path before them, as was his way, but leading them along a more focused trail as he spoke.

“There are a million things in my head, like if when my brain was put in they threw in an extra half and it’s mushed up with mine so I can’t remember why I’ve seen that _tree_ before, or those spooky rocks.” He tried to explain, pointing to a jagged copse of blackened, toothlike rocks with carvings scratched bone-white across their surfaces. “Maybe if I know what he’s like I can figure them out.”

Janus stayed quiet for a long moment, trying to figure out what mental journey Remus might have taken. This was the first time Janus had encountered the other creativity, Remus’s _brother_ apparently, but clearly the two sides at least had knowledge of the other. And Remus, it appeared, had some knowledge of Creativity. Cautiously, Janus decided to just answer the question.

“Well, he was a lot like you. He _loved_ to be directed and told what he could or couldn’t do, he… just wanted to make things. Tell stories. He was wild and he wanted to share it with everyone, wanted people to see and join in and run with it all, to not stop and question everything.” This was the longest he’d allowed himself to think about the lost side since Remus had shown up, and while he couldn’t help the smile that twitched at his lips at the memory of Creativity, the fact that that was all he was now hurt. “He had so many ideas. Sometimes he didn’t even care if it made sense, he wanted as many of them out there as possible. Like, that thing we fought earlier, it looked familiar-” Remus tsk-ed to himself and Janus looked over.

“I was really proud of that one…”

Janus just smiled at his sullen expression. “I think it used to have fur. And it was _definitely_ a rampaging murder beast.”

“Sounds boring.” He commented, looking at least a little more pleased with himself.

“It was, but it was just a thing that existed, it didn’t have a point. Sometimes, he was a little too big for even himself to handle- that’s not what I meant and it’s not funny.” Remus’s snickers hissed eerily through the trees like distant echoes as Janus shook his head. They sidestepped the withered ground from earlier, the first clue that they were back on the right track, and whatever mood had been bothering Remus before seemed to be lifting. He didn’t know if he was still paying attention but Janus knew in himself that if he stopped now he might never open up about this again so he kept going.

“’Tiv was every character you could think of at once. He was proud, and fanciful, adventurous, romantic. He was just... him. But he wasn’t at the same time. He’s hard to describe. We were friends, I think, but I don’t think anyone ever really knew what he was really like, or if there was anyone actually under it all. He didn’t have a room.” He added as an afterthought, a little fact he’d never known what to do with before. “He just had _this_.” This, the Imagination. He gestured vaguely to their surroundings to indicate that.

“Sounds like a lot of things I’m not!” Remus chimed in that way of his, listening and potentially interested but not particularly involved; like he had no strong feelings on the matter despite how personal the statement. “And a lot of things dear brother likes to be.”

Janus shrugged, not agreeing or disagreeing, but cautiously reassuring in case that was what Remus needed. “He wasn’t everything you’re not, and he wasn’t everything you _are_.” He stressed. “You might have similar ideas to him, but from what I’ve seen of Princey over there you’re going to have a lot more of your own.” Finally looking up to gauge his reaction, Janus thought that maybe he’d been right the first time: Remus appeared to have moved on from the conversation.

“Oh, believe me, I know.” He trilled, bouncing to the side. “Mind your feet!”

His assessing look melted into a frown. “My-” He broke off with a yell and the world went dark, Remus’s laughter fading soon after.

Quicksand.

Of course.

He _really_ didn’t know why he tried.

“You know, I thought we were having a moment.” He griped later, sitting by the pit as he shook sand out of his gloves with what he wished was more force than necessary but the stubborn specks refused to budge. He’d already attempted to banish them three times and yet there were always more.

Remus burst from the ground with his hat between his teeth, sand spilling from his mouth as he grinned around the fabric. “Why?” He asked, his teeth clattering together with a sound that made Janus wince as he tugged the accessory free and placed it back on his head.

“Who knows.” Pulling his glove back on, he figured he was just going to have to make peace with the grit itching his hands until he got home and could dedicate a bit more time to the getting rid of it. In the meantime, he watched as Remus swam around in his deadly little pool, sinking under more than once, until Janus was ready to leave.

“Did you like it? I saw it in _The Princess Bride_.” Remus explained, his wrists bound in Janus’s tight grip, allowing himself to be dragged like a deadweight from the pit and doing little to help as Janus puffed.

“Well. I like it more than anything else you could have picked from that scene.”

“All in due time!” Jumping to his feet, sand flying off of him in waves, he took off into the forest with Janus once again following behind, watching the ground now as well as their surroundings for incoming threats. “I think our friend from before could use some upgrades too.”

“As loath as I am to admit it, I agree.”

“I thought that just fighting him would be enough but he barely fought back and what’s the fun in that?” He continued to ramble for most of the way home, happy to speak and accepting Janus’s few comments to urge him on. They didn’t speak about the door again, or the others, and for now that was just fine by them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyyyy! Bit late there. And also not the chapter I promised... no correlation, I'm sure...  
> Things went a little pear-shaped, should get the chapter I wanted to post out on time but with how long this took me I'm not going to make promises, I'm just gonna hope it will. I keep my tumblr updated with these kinds of things (same username) if you're ever wondering what's going on, but! As I said, hopefully back to normal now and I'll see you all next week! Virgil should feature a lot more heavily, I'm aware he's been neglected these last couple chapters.  
> Thank you for reading, and for your patience! I hope you enjoyed x


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick warning, this chapter has brief mentions of anxiety attacks and panic attacks. Very brief mention of drugs and knives, so brief I'm not sure they even need a call-out.

So much changed over the years since Remus and Roman manifested in the mindscape. Thankfully, no one else had come or gone since then but there was one change that had affected the dark sides more than the other, more normal aspects of Thomas growing up: Thomas had found out about Virgil. More and more as time went on Virgil’s own thoughts and fears had begun manifesting in Thomas’s mind, like he was whispering them into his ear. Virgil still had his own attacks and usually they made their way through to Thomas, that had always been something that Virgil and Janus had dealt with, but this quiet influence that Virgil now seemed to possess was troubling.

Thomas moving into high school had been an incredibly tense time for all three of them. The sheer number of potential threats that Virgil saw in the halls, in the classrooms, in Thomas’s friends and classmates, was too overwhelming for Janus to successfully keep under wraps, especially when he had Remus to focus on as well. Keeping Remus’s trysts contained to the Imagination had been simple enough when the other side hadn’t been too concerned about sharing them with Thomas. As Thomas grew up, however, and was exposed to more of the world, to more of the darker aspects of both storytelling and real life, Remus felt his time had come to contribute to the creative process and had thrown himself violently at every opportunity to do so. Thomas, Janus was loath realise, didn’t seem to agree. And neither did Roman.

Janus had thought that Virgil and Remus being at odds with one another was going to be the most difficult challenge he would face when keeping their existences from Thomas. Them working _together_ , while it didn’t happen often, was a nightmare’s nightmare. If Virgil reacted badly to one of Remus’s suggestions, or Remus regarded Virgil’s concerns as a creative goldmine, the fallout would be dramatic, but ultimately manageable between his own interference and the strength of Roman’s voice. When the two sides banded together, spite contributing to sadistic undermining as they tore through Roman’s creations and acted out in painful detail every bad thing that went through Thomas’s head, it was all Janus could do to keep them hidden but he _was_ keeping it hidden.

So, when Virgil appeared in front of Thomas for the first time, there wasn’t a single person involved who had expected it to happen.

It didn’t go well.

Leaning against the end of the railing at the bottom of the stairs, Virgil had been listening, unseen, as Thomas doodled into the notebook resting on top of his textbook as Roman weaved a story together. He watched as Thomas’s pen faltered as his own influence, which had caused him to close the textbook in the first place, refocused on the wasted time, on slipping grades, on disappointing his parents, on surprise pop quizzes-

“Why are you doing this?” The voice was harsh and Virgil blinked in surprise, his gaze immediately lifting to Roman but the other side seemed just as confused as him. Virgil watched as Roman noticed he was there, and it took a moment to process it because that would mean it was _Thomas_ who was speaking. Thomas who had addressed… him?

That was exactly what was happening and wow, it didn’t feel great, he thought as he locked eyes with Thomas for the first time. Was seen by Thomas for the first time. Was about to _speak to Thomas for the first time_.

“Um, _hi?_ What do you want?” _What was **that**_?

“What do _I_ want?”

This wasn’t going well, right? This wasn’t just him?

Thomas had put his pen down, Virgil’s own undercurrent of anxiety swirling in tight circles around both of them as they stared each other out. As far as first interactions went, he would say it wasn’t as bad as Remus’s but it was a close thing. “You have been plaguing me for _years_!”

“Well that’s kinda rude.” With Thomas and Roman both staring him down Virgil could feel himself getting defensive. Unfortunately, he was also getting flustered and he wasn’t sure who it would be more appropriate to direct his attention towards.

“As rude as keeping me up at night?” Thomas continued, Roman swooping over to flank him. “As rude as giving me heart palpitations whenever I make eye contact with someone?”

“Well that’s just-”

“As rude as derailing a perfectly wonderful daydream by offering up your mopey dopey input?” Roman interrupted and while Virgil really wished he wasn’t there, Roman, at least, he knew how to react to.

“I was _trying_ to-” He turned to sneer at him, ready to defend himself but Thomas didn’t seem ready for this argument.

“I need you to stop.” Thomas stressed, putting the words out like an ultimatum despite not having to power to enforce them. Neither of them did. “You need to just give me a _minute_ where I’m not scared to live my life!”

“All I want is-

“Be gone! Anxiety!” Roman decreed and as Virgil looked between the two, that seemed to be that.

He wasn’t going to tear up. He _wasn’t_. He was going to tear them down. “D’you know what? Fine. But I’m not going anywhere, Thomas. You’re stuck with me whether you like it or not, and you not wanting to hear it is never going to stop me saying it.” With that threat hanging in the air between them he sank out.

When he appeared back in the dark side of the mindscape Janus was already waiting for him.

“What the hell just happened?” He demanded, rounding on Virgil as soon as he spotted him but the anxious side just pushed him away. “Virgil! How did he see you? _What did you do_?”

“What did _I_ do?” Virgil asked, clinging weakly to his defences to try and keep his panic at bay but he could already feel them slipping. “I can’t believe you! It’s meant to be your job to keep me hidden! What the hell did _you_ do?” His vision was distorting as his eyes began to glow, something he’d gotten so much better at controlling, and he clutched at his hoodie, trying to wrap it around him and keep it from choking him at the same time. “ _He saw me_ , Dee. He saw me and he knows I’m here and he could _get rid of me._ **What if he gets rid of me?** ”

Janus stepped back, giving him space, and just for a moment hated that he had to be the calm one.

“He’s definitely going to get rid of you. He’s a medical marvel, banishing anxiety is totally something he can do.” He’d gone for sarcasm in the hopes that it might pull Virgil back down to ground level but if anything he’d just made it worse. Virgil’s breathing was rapidly picking up speed and shadows were creeping out of the corners of the room as he started to hyperventilate.

“ **He doesn’t want anything to do with me.** ” Virgil breathed out, his voice twisting through the room, hitching with an echoing click as he choked another breath back in. The walls were creaking with a pressure he hadn’t put them under in a long time and Thomas’s own panic and betrayal at what he likely assumed was an intentional attack was just pulling the cracks in the plaster further apart.

“ _That’s not true_.” Janus was quick to rebut and quicker to wish he hadn’t. Remus appeared in the doorway, visibly excited and covered in dust and that was the second-last thing Janus needed right now, the first being Virgil’s familiarity with when Janus had caught himself in a lie.

The accusing finger was already being pointed towards him as Virgil stared down at him with wide, panicked eyes.

“ **You’re lying! You agree with him!** ”

“I _do._ ” He tried to defend but his mouth wouldn’t cooperate. “ _I do._ **I don’t agree**!” He was getting too riled up, he thought desperately as Virgil continued to unravel.

“ **It doesn’t even matter! He hates me and he’s going to keep hating me and** -”

“Virgil! _Breathe_. For the love of-”

“ **I threatened him! I honest to god _threatened_ him-**”

“Who are we threatening?” Remus interrupted at what just might be the worst possible moment and Janus whipped around to douse that fire before it had a chance to spread.

“ _No-one_.” He stressed as Virgil shouted over him.

“ **Thomas!** ”

“We’re threatening Thomas!? Coz I have some ideas!” Remus began to ramble, and the pressure was just building and building in the room as Virgil’s instincts to recoil from the creative side began overriding his practice in not letting them. The wall behind Virgil was bulging in towards them with a strain that shot through Janus’s body and made his teeth ache. This needed to stop. This needed to stop about _five minutes ago_.

“Enough!” He yelled, forcing every ounce of his own self control into keeping his voice steady as his composure crumbled around him. “We are not. Threatening. Anyone.”

Virgil’s attention snapped to Janus, still breathing erratically while Remus pouted in the hallway. It wasn’t often that Janus was ever truly angry. Sure, he acted annoyed, sometimes he even _got_ annoyed, but it was so often an act that seeing him lose his calm enough to shout at them was unnerving. He closed his eyes and took a steadying breath; Virgil unconsciously, if clumsily, copied the action.

“Remus,” Janus addressed after a moment, opening his eyes to look over at the creative side who was already a step ahead of him.

“I know, go to my room until the emo stops crying.” He sulked and slunk back up the hall, calling over his shoulder as he went. “But if he brings the ceiling down and I miss it again I’ll be pissed!”

Janus just sighed and made his way back over to Virgil. The other side had his eyes squeezed shut, trying to reign his emotions back in, but there wasn’t a doubt in Janus’s mind that he was aware of every step he was taking towards him.

“Virgil?” He checked, his voice soft and his touch gentle as he rested his fingers on Virgil’s arm. The muscle under his hand convulsed and froze, tension lacing every inch of the anxious side’s body and the bricks in the walls ground against each other. “You’re not going anywhere.” He reassured, ignoring the crack that shot up the wall in front of him. “Thomas can’t get rid of you, and he’s not going to stop listening to you just because he knows you’re here now. I don’t know what happened, maybe we just got careless with hiding ourselves, but Thomas was clearly ready to know about you otherwise he wouldn’t have known to look.”

“ **He hates me. Maybe he shouldn’t listen-** ”

“Oh, I _really_ missed having this argument, I’m _so glad_ you’ve brought it up again.”

Virgil shot Janus a glare before wrapping his arms tighter around himself. “ **Just because you say it doesn’t make it true.** ” It was the wrong thing to say, and Virgil really didn’t need Janus lifting a hand to his ear in mock confusion to drive it home.

“Just because I say what now? Sorry, for all I’ve missed it, it really _has_ been too long. You’ll have to remind me.” Janus wheedled. Virgil was scowling too hard to let a smile through, his chest still hitching with uneven breaths to appreciate any humour in his antics.

“ **I have a purpose.** ” He muttered back, his twist of voices quietening and evening out as he calmed, the glow in his eyes dying.

“And what is that?” Janus pressed, undeterred by the surly attitude; he was well used to it by now and after all these years of practice his tolerance levels for nonsense were so much higher than Virgil’s.

“ **You are so annoying!** ” Virgil snapped back, his voice picking up again before he sighed, visibly deflating. “…to keep Thomas safe.”

“And has Thomas gotten into any mortal danger yet? Is he on drugs? Is he friends with that weird, knifey kid at the back of the class? Has he been hit by any cars or wandered down creepy alleyways recently?”

“…No.”

“No. Because he listens to you. And he will continue listening to you if he wants to keep avoiding those things.” Janus gave it a moment for that to sink in before gesturing Virgil to the couch with fake flippancy. “You know, you should forget that again soon, it’s always a laugh and a half.”

“Shut up.” Virgil answered, tired and upset but calming down which checked “goal number one” off of Janus’s list. Virgil let himself be herded off to the couch and sat down tentatively in his corner, pulling his blankets around him as Janus headed off towards the kitchen.

“Remus? You can come back out-” The creative side exploded through the wall into the hallway and bounded back to the living room, already talking about what he had been doing in his short bout of imprisonment. “-now.” Janus finished to himself, busying himself with dinner and muttering about unappreciative housemates to keep his mind off of what had really been a troubling and unexpected development. There was probably a way this could work to their advantage over here, he just had to work though the huge, horrifying list of further things that could possibly go wrong before Virgil got a hold of it… But first: dinner. Potential doom could wait until tomorrow.

\---

It was unprecedented. It may even be blessed.

They managed to put off the conversation for almost a full week before it reared its head again and even then… it wasn’t that doomy. It was Remus who brought it up first, which wasn't entirely unexpected since both Janus and Virgil were doing their bests to avoid it for the time being; the fact that he let it lie for as long as it did was really lending itself to the “blessed” theory.

Still, they could only avoid it for so long, and as with so many things in their lives, Remus ended it with a holler across the living room.

“Virgie, go tell Thomas that Roman’s idea for his short story is boring and I should write it instead!”

Virgil blanched and looked up from his fidget cube, an equally cursed and helpful invention, to gape down the hall. Remus was in his room, clearly trying to work on _something_ , and didn’t bother to show up to drive home his demand as if it was the most reasonable thing in the world.

“I’m not going _anywhere_!” Virgil answered, incredulous, but sitting beside him Janus felt like he’d been struck.

 _Go tell Thomas_.

They had an open line of communication with Thomas. It was something he had considered, briefly, but hearing it said so plainly – _go tell Thomas_ – was like being thrown through a windshield towards his destination. He tuned back in to the other sides’ yelling, a skill that was beginning to worry him with how easy blocking them out had become, and spoke softly.

“Go tell Thomas…” He mused, like he was still rolling that idea around in his mind. It had the desired effect, Virgil stopped shouting to turn his incredulity towards him. Remus didn’t get the memo but the silence in response to his demands was telling enough and he soon appeared.

“You can’t be serious.” Panic was straining at Virgil’s throat but when no other sign of his anxiety manifested Janus determined it safe to push on.

“It’s an interesting prospect if nothing else. I love being trapped over here and largely voiceless as much the next person but the chance to maybe… drop some hints? Wouldn’t be entirely useless.” He carefully laid out, watching Virgil for his reaction.

“You just want me to go out there and push your weird agendas.” Virgil threw at him as Janus stared back flatly and tried not to let the accusation annoy him.

“Ah, you’ve seen right through me. How could I have forgotten to hide my weird agendas, there’s so many of them.” He deadpanned and Virgil at least had the decency to look away, embarrassed. “I’m just saying that Remus might have a point. We can hint and nudge from over here and have Roman and Morality pummel our suggestions into the ground-”

“Morality hardly _pummels_ -” Virgil mumbled but Janus just spoke louder over him.

“Or we could try a different approach! You could pop over there _like you already do_ and instead of skulking in the stairwell you could… relay a message or two.” He suggested, pulling his casual air around him once again as he waited for Virgil’s response. The anxious side must have at least been considering it because he took a moment to process what he was saying, what he was asking him to do. When he eventually did speak, Janus was surprised to find he was actually nervous about what his answer would be.

Virgil’s eyes scanned his face, looking for something and hopefully finding what Janus needed.

“Even if your argument didn’t start with the words, ‘maybe Remus has a point’ it wouldn’t work. Why would they believe anything that comes out of my mouth? And what if he just finds out about you two as well? You said that he wasn’t ready for that yet.”

“He won’t find out about us.” Janus insisted, raising his hand to halt Virgil’s arguments. “He won’t find out because I won’t let him. We didn’t know he could learn about us on his own before but now we do and I’m not going to make the same mistake twice.” Janus reached over and took Virgil’s hand, his grip loose as the younger side instinctively made to move away before accepting the comforting grip for what it was. “I’ve always done my best to keep us safe and hidden. I’m sorry that I let you down but it’s not going to happen again. If you don’t want to then fine, we can do our best to continue as we always have, but we’ve also got the option now to change and try something new.”

Virgil was quiet again for a long time, fidgeting with Janus’s hand in his, his eyes flicking between his two friends, until finally…

“Roman’s idea for the story _is_ pretty boring.” He relented, clearly still hesitant but Remus’s whoop brought a smirk to his lips.

And that became the way of it for a long time. Virgil made trips to visit Thomas, sometimes alone but usually to intrude on the light sides’ conversations with him, offering up his, Janus’s and Remus’s input to whatever dilemma the boy was facing. His fights with Roman became staples in both Roman and Remus’s stories. His distrust and discomfort of the other sides didn’t lend itself well to small talk and he escaped nearly every interaction he had with them quickly and with a scathing remark. He didn’t like them, he didn’t want to know them, but he wasn’t oblivious to what they were saying just because it wasn’t directed at him. He brought home the occasional update, the odd titbit or stupid idea he’d overheard to laugh about with Remus, and when Thomas announced he was thinking of making a video series of them he came home with another panic attack.

The introduction video was short, it went well, and when Thomas mentioned his anxiety Virgil didn’t show up. It was decision he was sure everyone was quite pleased with and an exclusion that upset him for some reason. Together with Janus and Remus he watched as another video was made about the light sides, watched Logic occupy his moping spot on the stairs, and listened to the twin comments in his ear with the enthusiasm that came with being a long-term nuisance.

“You could just show up like you usually do. It’d piss him off for sure.”

“And it _wouldn’t_ be more honest, just like Morality wants.”

So he did.

It was kind of fun, Virgil could admit, crashing in on their parties no matter how nervous the translation of his thoughts to video made him. Janus and Remus were still giving him messages to ferry over the divide-

“Virgil, go tell Thomas to stop kidding himself with the whole new years resolutions thing, would you? It’s getting boring.”

\- But the more Virgil got into it the videos the more Janus started to worry. He was taking his time coming home. When Virgil had stormed back complaining that he had been tricked into holding Roman’s hand it wasn’t until after the video was released that he realised it had happened _after_ they had finished discussing Thomas’s dating dilemma, that it had been added in at the end because Virgil had _stayed_. That in itself wouldn’t have been too big of a problem only it was just one more instance in a much bigger pattern.

Virgil was with the others now despite the fact that Thomas’s attention had been elsewhere for some time. He was meant to be home. They had agreed on a movie night and it wasn’t often that they planned them but Remus had been spending more and more time in the Imagination trying desperately to make something that Thomas or Roman wouldn’t immediately disregard and Virgil kept flitting from side to side. It was becoming an increasingly rare occurrence for all three of them to spend extended time in the same room together and a catch-up movie night was a solution they all could easily agree on.

Virgil wasn’t late but Janus hadn’t expected him to be _on time_ for the evening, he thought he would already be here. His little blanket fort lay empty. By unspoken-agreement-turned-explicit-and-enforced-rule, all claimed surfaces, interiors and spaces directly above and below the seating arrangements in the living room were to be left untampered with but there was only so much Janus could do if Virgil wasn’t there to defend his spot from Remus.

The two sides were already in their places by the time Virgil arrived. The duke lay with his stomach to the bare couch, the cushions long gone, his chin in his hands and his legs sprawled up the wall behind him; Janus sat neatly in the middle, occasionally pushing Remus’s leg back up the wall when it strayed too close into his own space. The still glow of the television marked the promise of that night’s peace as Virgil settled himself into his seat.

“It’s about time, emo!” Remus burst, ginning at Virgil from over the top of Janus’s legs, his neck craned horribly to see him. His voice was strained from the unnatural angle but no less loud as he wiggled the fingers of his outstretched hand in greeting, forcing an irritated hiss from the deceitful side as his body slouched down the wall, unbalanced now and leaning heavily on Janus’s shoulder. Janus gave his legs a rough shove which toppled him harshly over the armrest, an excited squeal following him down with a thud onto the floor.

Virgil raised an eyebrow at Janus as the now-ruffled side stared resolutely at the tv, barely managing to lift the remote to the screen before the duke’s body landed heavily in his lap. The wind rushed out of him in an outraged shriek which was cut short as he was forced to catch Remus's leg as he scrambled up the back of the couch, crawling alongside the wall before rolling off to drop down over Virgil.

“Remus!” Janus snapped, tugging his clothes back into place. He snarled over at the wrestling pair at the far end of the couch. Virgil who had been quietly snickering at his plight was now growing red with the effort of keeping Remus away from his corner. His foot was planted firmly in Remus’s back in an attempt to tip him back off the couch as the duke twisted and lifted himself however he could to reach him, grinning down at him despite the angle. As the duke arched up, Virgil was forced to lift his leg to keep him away, his other leg curling in preparation to catch him in the torso (or face) if he succeeded in flipping over but he was saved the effort by Janus.

Four pairs of hands gripped the front of the duke’s uniform and hoisted him off. “Sit. There.” He huffed, planking Remus down on the couch, not quite in his usual space but close enough. “Nuh-UH!” He warned as Remus twisted towards Virgil who hissed back at him. He poked him hard in the chest so he was sat back in his seat. “Right there.”

With an exaggerated huff, Janus sat himself back between the two of them and retracted his extra arms. “Virgil, how wonderful for you to join us again. We _weren’t_ waiting for you.” Virgil sunk down slightly in his seat and scowled over at him, his eyes dark under his hood even as his cheeks retained their glow from the exertion of holding up the duke. Janus caught the movement and bit back a sigh, once again focusing his attention on the television, not wanting to sour the evening. “Remus is right, you were gone quite a while this time. Anything interesting happening over there that we should be aware of?” It was an empty interest and Janus and Virgil both knew it but Janus glanced over and caught Virgil’s eye before they both snapped back to their diverted staring. Things that pertained to Thomas always made their way back to them despite their distance. Anything they didn’t know was about the other sides and it was getting difficult for them to collectively ignore that Virgil was _interested_ in them.

Virgil shifted uncomfortably. While Janus was purposefully not looking, Remus had no such qualms. Staring over at Virgil, his interest was impossible to ignore. The intensity of his stare never lessened but instead of the amusement that almost constantly painted his face with disturbing but familiar curiosity, his overly wide eyes bore into him with a relentless, genuine eagerness.

“Weeeeell?” He prompted, cutting to the chase as he leaned forward into Janus’s space without crossing over it, sticking to his side as instructed with a wide smile once again splitting across his face. “How are they, Virgie?”

Shuffling himself more comfortably into his corner, Virgil looked up at Janus’s profile. He tried to ignore Remus as much as he could but his attempts were in vain as the duke effortlessly ducked into in his line of sight after every flick of his eyes. He knew that Janus didn’t really want to know. He’d asked as some kind of olive branch, but Remus… Virgil turned to scowl at him, finally stopping the frantic bobbing of his head as he tried to get his attention. “They’re as they always are. Fighting amongst themselves but weirdly nice about it after.” His gaze drifted over to the TV. “They’re having a movie night tonight too.”

Virgil had missed the vote, he noted as he stared at the paused opening credits of the film, so it was likely Janus who had either picked or rigged the outcome for that night’s entertainment and that was fine by him. The last time Remus had been allowed to pick Virgil hadn’t slept for a week and Thomas had been a mess. Anything that Janus decided on would be safer, if still potentially unsettling.

Remus flicked his wrist and the credits began, seemingly an accident as he bolstered himself up into a shrieky laugh which the other sides knew could so easily become a monologue. “Some saccharine Disney flick!” He taunted as though they didn’t do the same, throwing himself back into the couch as if to watch the film currently playing but it had never been in his nature to feign anything. He had soon physically turned his attention back towards Virgil.

Janus maintained his neutral position of watching the TV, shoulders relaxed but the human side of his face was noticeably pinched. Virgil couldn’t help but watch Remus carefully. At this point that was second nature, but whenever Roman came up in conversation (directly or otherwise) it became difficult to predict exactly how the conversation would go. But it was movie night. There were too many fond memories attached to these evenings to ruin it now.

“Probably.” He agreed with a smirk. “They’ll be rolling around in their happy ever afters as usual, bored to death and delusional.” Virgil huffed a small laugh, rolling his eyes as he thought of the others.

Maybe they were sitting just like this, Patton probably in the middle, keeping the peace. Logan would be where Virgil sat, he guessed, slightly removed from the noise but still involved, with Princey taking Remus’s place on the end, being loud and annoying like his brother. They would all be close, talking amongst themselves, probably not even watching whatever film they had on. A perfect little family unit. It was as difficult for Virgil to imagine one them sitting here on this couch now as it was for him to join their little imaginary couch in his head.

He was drawn out of his thoughts by Remus who had already begun loudly rewriting Snow White, the apparent victim of the light sides’ movie night and Virgil was happy to join in with this safer topic. Shifting forward, he lounged down with his elbows resting down onto his knees and his chin cupped in his palm as he started weaving in as many dark theories about the film as he could, feeding into Remus’s increasingly disturbing and bizarre recounting.

Janus was finally starting to relax, listening as Remus’s shrill, enthusiastic storytelling overlapped with Virgil’s lower contributions, creating the comforting and familiar racket that he was used to filling their half of the mindscape.

Virgil was creeping away from them. He was painfully aware of it, potentially more so than even Virgil himself. Remus could see it, he was almost sure, but he didn’t seem to believe that Virgil could leave, not that Janus could blame him. Janus wasn’t even sure himself if Virgil could leave them completely. He’d developed into what they knew as Anxiety as a dark side, kept in the shadows and away from Thomas as a direct influence, but he was also the only one of them to be officially recognised as well. And neither of them were stupid. Janus couldn’t be sure how deeply Remus’s concerns ran but he had seen him watching the door when Virgil was gone.

Roman, the _prince_ , always had the potential to be a sensitive topic, but sometimes it felt like there was glass scattered over the floor. Every mention of the other half of Creativity, every idea picked over Remus’s, crushed the glass finer into dust, and every trip that Virgil took to the light side stirred it into the air. Sometimes it seemed they couldn’t breathe a word about the others without it choking them all. Other times it settled, Remus seemed eager and interested by this new window into his brother’s life, and Janus could never tell if the only reason the shards didn’t reach him and Virgil was because Remus himself was covered.

Regardless of whether his return was met with explosions or high spirits, Virgil would always bring the others with him in some way; the far-off look in his eye tonight was only proof. He couldn’t know if Virgil _wanted_ to leave. He didn’t think so, not yet, but he wasn’t going to ask, and he didn’t want to know the answer.

Remus couldn’t be left behind; that was one of those facts of existence that underlay Janus’s understanding of the world. It was just unfortunate that Virgil’s newfound curiosity with the others was rapidly becoming something else he had to factor in and he doubted it would just go away without consequences. He didn’t know how he would even begin to deal with the fallout if Virgil didn’t come back one day. Still, tonight was going… _well_ , he noted with a small smile. The banter bombarding him from either side was soothing in a way he was loath to admit but happy to relish in. It gave them another day. He didn’t know when he started thinking about their dynamic in how long it had left, and he hated that he did, but by now he was just waiting for the inevitable outcome.

Glancing over to Virgil, he allowed himself the luxury of enjoying the smile on his face. It was an _evil_ looking smile… but it was a happy evil looking smile, so he counted it among his blessings. Things were ok right now and he was going to enjoy that while it lasted. They could and would enjoy today and however many more they had after. Settling in, it seemed like Janus was going to be the only one watching this film tonight and that was ok too. They could pretend they were still their normal for now and they would continue to.

Until Virgil was summoned for the first time and everything truly started to unravel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear. Lord. Hi. It has been some time. This chapter has been hellish and I don't know if you noticed but there are about 3 or 4 different styles going on up there because I wrote this thing 3 or 4 different times. I don't hate it? I think it's as good as it's going to get. Quick note/tip don't write the last 1/3 of your chapter first and then try to mash it in at the end if you can help it. It has the potential to make you very sad.
> 
> Thank you guys so much for waiting and for reading, I really hope you enjoyed it. As always, come say hi on tumblr, I'm there under the same username, and I'll keep that space posted with any updates for this story if they are ever needed. I would also honestly appreciate a little feedback just for this chapter so I know it makes sense XD I've rewritten so many times now I can't tell if all the info that needs to be in there made it in. But yes! Hopefully this gets us back on track. See you next time! x


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Virgil has been summoned for the first time. Drifting from the dark sides yet no closer to the others is putting a strain on everyone and Janus is struggling to cope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please read end notes for fic update x

There was a lot to be said about that overdone phrase, “it’s _too_ quiet,” and Janus had to say that his least favourite thing about it was how often it was true. Sitting peacefully on the couch with Virgil was nice, it was calm; even Remus was sitting happily messing around with their view out the window. The quiet hadn’t even begun stressing him out yet and he couldn’t decide if he should have seen it coming or not when Virgil disappeared. Between one second and the next Virgil had frowned, confused. Between one second and the next he had gone from pencilling in his eyeliner with the mirror Janus was holding steady for him to standing in front of Thomas and the light sides.

Janus could only stare at the spot Virgil had just vacated, lowering the mirror as his brain stumbled over the implications of what he was looking at, repeatedly landing back on the simple observation that Virgil wasn’t sitting there anymore. He could feel the answer occupying the anxious side’s space, twisting patiently as his own influence skirted his eyes away from it because if that answer was true, if he’d come to the right conclusion, then Virgil-

“Did he just die!” Remus squealed, the view from the window thoroughly abandoned for this much more exciting venture.

 _No, he’d been summoned_. It sounded very sensible and straightforward in his head, like reading the headline from a newspaper. It made sense, it was clearly what had happened, but for some reason Janus didn’t seem capable of reading the rest of the article, and he definitely didn’t want to read it out loud. He’d never been on the receiving end of his own influence before, or at least he had never been confronted with his own influence in the face of something he wasn’t yet ready to accept. He had never realised how terrifying it was to be caught in the middle.

Remus waved his hand close enough to his face to smack his nose and Janus batted him away, sinking into his own denial, _just for now, just for a minute_ , and trusting it to keep him safe even as he scowled up at the other side.

“No, he didn’t.” And that was all he was saying on the matter. His boundaries for what was and was not up for discussion were something that Remus getting better at accepting but never took lying down. As such, it didn’t surprise him when Remus kept poking, literally, at his face. He let Remus distract him because he was almost sure that was what the creative side was doing though he could feel the constant prodding starting to wear away at his patience. It took a few minutes to get him to stop, to catch his hands in a secure enough grip for the duke to give up, and he could almost forget what it was Remus was distracting him from.

He pulled the other side down onto the couch to sit next to him, to occupy the empty space that was taking up so much of his concentration. It wasn’t really fair of him, he knew that, and on some level he felt guilty as Remus fidgeted beside him. Remus, who had developed through the years from the dark side of creativity to the unwanted side, who had never cared for secrets or the lies people told themselves to get by, who strove to be heard in the most vicious ways he could to expose the things Thomas didn’t want to hear. Nevertheless, he moulded awkwardly into the shape Janus asked for, sitting on the truth even as it made him squirm in his seat.

Virgil was gone for less the ten minutes. It was far from the longest time he had spent with the others but when he came back he was the most upset Janus had seen him in ages. As soon as he appeared Remus shot from the couch, a screech of “finally!” following him out the window, gone for what Janus assumed would be most of the night but he himself didn’t need to get up from the couch because Virgil had already thrown himself down onto it.

“I’m just a villain to them!” Virgil ranted, grabbing one of the blankets from his pile and angrily wrapping it around himself as he fought to get comfortable in the corner. “Why would they do that? Why would they summon me for a video just to accuse me of _sabotaging_ them? Logic literally called me the antagonist. Not _an_ antagonist, _the_ antagonist. They all hate me and I don’t know why I even bother trying to help them.”

Janus took all of that in silently as he watched Virgil seethe, a few things twisting dangerously in his head as he watched Virgil’s hands tighten into fists under the blanket, saw the way his mouth pinched and the area around his eyes starting to pinken like he could cry. He combed through Virgil’s words like a brush through hair, straightening out the story into something a little neater, something a little more like what he wanted to see.

“Stop looking at me like you’re trying to figure out how much my organs are worth.” Virgil complained and Janus realised that he’d been staring. He shifted his gaze, still looking over at Virgil but much less intently, and now that he’d been made aware of it he could see how uncomfortable the other side was as the tension started easing out of him.

“You’re starting to sound like Remus.” He teased, more of a distraction than an apology.

“If I was Remus I would’ve been offering them.” Virgil answered, giving a barely there roll of his eyes before moping down into his blankets. Janus waited for him to continue, his mind poised with the comb and his thoughts in his hands, ready to weave the truth together in a way that _fixed this_. It was the only way he could see himself in that moment, desperately avoiding what he didn’t want to hear and with every second that passed he hated himself for wanting Virgil to be crushed by them. He hated himself so intensely that he could have cried when Virgil finally spoke and he started to braid.

“I actually tried to help.” Virgil confessed, and Janus didn’t panic, he just started the little braid in his mind, weaving Virgil’s story into something he could use. “And Logic still thought I wanted to hurt them. Like, yeah, it’s _Logic_. I used an idiom and he didn’t get it-” He lost a strand- “-but even after they listened they just called in Princey and he accused me of the exact same thing the rest of them had!” -and he picked up a new one. “And then they just ignored me. They whole rest of the video I tried to jump in, to make a comment, and they shushed me! _Thomas_ shushed me, so I left but Roman caught me as I was leaving to, like, bitch about the others and then they all just started _screaming_ so I sunk out.” Virgil ended, huffing out a stuttered breath before clenching his teeth and Janus was honestly concerned he was going to cry.

He didn’t say anything as he sat with the completed narrative ready in his mind and he studied the ends of his braid and realised how easy it would be for him to tie the pieces together. To crush him, to put him off, to make him never want to go back and let this be the end of it. He stared at Virgil once more, just for a moment.

“And they had proven themselves to be _so_ _smart_ in the past.” He eventually said, forcing himself to release the strands. Virgil gave a bitter laugh but Janus couldn’t bring himself to join in. “They’re idiots, Virge. They’ve never been able to look past their own noses before and now isn’t any different. I don’t want to tell you what to do with them. Maybe you’ll make progress, I don’t know. All I know is we’re over here for a reason and until today they seemed pretty happy with that arrangement.”

Virgil didn’t say anything in return and Janus didn’t know how to continue. He decided it was time to lay at least some cards on the table.

“I don’t want you to get hurt because of them. You have a family here that you know cares about you and they…” He didn’t say “don’t.” He didn’t have to. “They’re new. I trust you to do what you want and need to do, and I trust you to keep yourself and Thomas safe while you’re doing it. Just please, keep it in mind that maybe you need to be on your guard with them. They don’t really know you yet, and you don’t know them.”

The younger side nodded to show he’d heard and Janus hated that he was once again sitting beside his best friend while filling the role of “parent of the dark sides.” He sat back on the couch, pulling his hesitations down with him and turned to Virgil this time with a smile.

“So… what was their big dilemma this time? Did you finally stopped Morality from saying adultery?”

Virgil shook his head with a huff though it lacked some of the energy that Janus was trying to inspire. Nevertheless, he answered.

“It was so stupid. Thomas started the video without any idea of what he was going to talk about so Logic and Morality dressed up as Sherlock and Watson to figure out who’s fault it was. Naturally, they picked me.” He griped, tugging his blankets again despite them not being able to wrap around him any tighter.

“That does seem like more of a Roman problem.” Janus agreed, watching with a satisfied little smirk as Virgil abandoned his cocoon to throw his arms up in exasperation.

“Exactly! They ended up deciding it was maybe Logic’s fault but they all had their little learning moments for how to work better as a team, and of course Princey took credit for the video getting made at the end. The whole thing was ridiculous. I mean _really_ -”

And he was off, ripping through the interaction with a viciousness Janus hoped he would take into the next one.

Virgil was summoned again by the others much too soon for Janus’s comfort and his report of them wasn’t much better than the time before.

_“I was actually enjoying myself for once then Princey asked me to stay behind after and spit yoghurt at me!”_

Still, he kept his concerns to himself. He had said what he was ready to say and listened to Virgil regale him with his newest encounter with the other sides.

The next time that Virgil came home he arrived in the living room, mouth already open as he turned to the couch, and Janus wasn’t there.

\---

He knew he couldn’t keep doing this.

When Virgil left, _again_ and so soon after his last visit, Janus had excused himself to his room. Remus wouldn’t follow, he never did. Neither of the other two sides had ever entered his room. Virgil never entered because he didn’t want to risk suffering in Janus’s room in any way like Janus suffered in his. Remus had no such qualms and Janus could tell he was endlessly curious about what lay beyond his door and yet he never crossed the threshold. He would run to the door, he would knock, yell, he’d even opened it once, but he never came in. Remus had tried to explain it to him, the push he felt against his stomach that he could never strain hard enough against that kept him away. Janus almost understood, he remembered the mental stress of being in Remus’s room, the pain of seeing his illusions and seeing through them at the same time. With so many secrets and lies and hidden truths woven into the very walls of his room, Remus’s very core probably found his sanctuary to be the only repulsive thing it had ever known.

Still, Janus was grateful for the privacy, even as Remus bounced off of his locked door out in the hallway. It was also possible, he mused with calm he didn’t feel, that it wasn’t so deep as all of that. The room itself could very easily just be unattractive to the other sides because just like theirs, his reacted in a very specific way to the people who entered.

Muscle memory guided him across the floor to where he knew his bed to be, his feet making contact with the plush carpet underneath even as his mind failed to register its presence. There was an emptiness that came with a refusal to acknowledge something, a darkness you could almost see instead of the truth and it followed people into his room. If there was something a guest truly didn’t want to know about themselves then his influence would take it, building it into the foundations of his room, his own little house of lies, and hide it from them.

Every wall, every floorboard, every piece of furniture in his room was made up of the little lies that Thomas told himself. His room harboured them and Janus secreted them away, invisible to everyone who had their own lies to tell. The secrets seeped through everything and any lie would obscure the room. The bigger the lie, the bigger the urge was to look away until the room faded and all that was left to be seen was the empty space that surrounded the house.

Janus cursed as he stumbled against the bed, hitting it much sooner than he’d anticipated. With one hand cushioned in the empty air obscuring his mattress, he turned and took in the nothingness around him. His door hung suspended over a drop that made him sick to think about. The walls were gone. So was his wardrobe, his desk, his bookcases and every book and notepad he had poured over to help him through these situations.

He had denied this turmoil inside himself for too long but he had to exist in it for just a bit longer to figure out how to get himself out.

He focused on the words that hid the truth from him, the words he wanted to say, the words that might keep him safe.

_They don’t want Virgil to stay with them. If they cared about him they would ask his opinion, they would ask him to stay. Virgil would give up on them, they didn’t care and they never would._

_I knew them, I was friends with them._

_We’re separate from them because they want us to be and chasing them won’t change that. They’re not worth it and they think_ we’re _not worth it._

_Virgil will let them go._

The room was darkening with every thought so Janus pulled himself upright, he took a breath, and he announced to the room, “Virgil was summoned.”

The room didn’t get darker but it didn’t come back into view either so Janus closed his eyes and tried again.

“Virgil wants to go.” The confession floated into the room, spoken softly but surely with no indication of the pain stabbing through Janus’s chest. Opening his eyes, he could have screamed when the room slowly but not fully reformed. He had one more confession to make, one more lie, one more fear that he knew to be true but hadn’t been able to make himself acknowledge.

“The others want him there.” _Not all of them, not yet_ ; he held onto that knowledge and tried to let it comfort him but the room didn’t care about justifications. It settled back into its normal state, everything down to the dust on the shelves back in place as Janus stood and watched. His influence uncoiled from around his shoulders and settled back inside of him, ready to be put to use once more instead of holding him captive in his own denial.

“I don’t want him to leave...” The room already knew that.

He stood silently as he waited for Virgil to return and felt him appear in the living room not much later. Sure enough, there was a knock on his door within minutes of the other side getting back and he answered it, composed, with an expectant raise of an eyebrow, a smile plucking at the corner of his mouth as the room twitched slightly at the deception. Janus stepped out quickly and closed the door behind him, moving into the kitchen as he prompted Virgil to talk.

“Well, how did it go?” He asked coolly, setting the kettle to boil and leaning against the counter as he waited for the newest installation of his least favourite show. He hated that he asked, he hated that he wanted the answer, but morbid curiosity wasn’t a trait excusive to their creative half even if the other never seemed to suffer as a consequence.

“I found out why Princey spit yoghurt at me. He barely had an excuse, he just wanted to pretend it was part of his stupid video idea.” Virgil complained, rolling his eyes as he hopped up onto the counter beside him, swinging his legs as he reached behind him to grab their mugs from the cupboard.

Janus just nodded along, quipping back whenever felt appropriate and when the teas were made he leaned a little closer to Virgil as he listened.

There wasn’t much else he could do.

Virgil kept going to them. Of course he did, he had no reason not to. He kept going and he kept coming back unhappy and Janus really didn’t know what to do about it. He also didn’t know what to do about _Remus_.

There wasn’t much about Remus’s behaviour that didn’t concern Janus on some level but the clinginess was new. He didn’t want to say it was freaking him out but it kind of was. Everywhere he turned, Remus was there.

First thing he saw when he opened his door in the morning?

Remus standing in the hallway.

Last thing at night?

Remus’s face disappearing in the crack of his door.

Sitting on the couch?

With Remus.

Making dinner?

With Remus.

Talking to Virgil?

With Remus.

 _Avoiding_ Remus?

 _With Remus_.

Totally not concerning at all. Remus was willingly taking part in Janus’s “quiet time” and was only marginally disruptive throughout. They had been on several adventures in the Imagination, Remus cashing in Janus’s request for sword lessons; he should have suspected that the creative side was a strictly hands-on kind of teacher. He’d only been abducted once but he was almost certain that was purely because after the first time he hadn’t been able to get the jump on him again. Remus hadn’t made any move to address his behaviour or explain himself and with one friendship on the rocks already, Janus wasn’t sure how to broach it either. So he didn’t. Even when it seemed like Remus himself didn’t want to be there.

For all his staring at _him_ , he spent a lot of time glancing over at his room, at the Imagination, itching to do something, to be somewhere, and yet he stayed and Janus was getting tired of not having the answers anymore.

He felt like he was failing and he didn’t know what he was even meant to be succeeding at. And Remus was right there with him for every minute of it. It went on for months, Janus hovered over Virgil while Remus hovered over him but the anxious side seemed farther away from them with every passing day. While he and Remus stood stranded on the beach, Virgil was drifting recklessly out into the ocean, no closer to land the further he went. He came home from his visits and videos and when confronted with an audience of two he retreated instead of swimming back. But Janus at least had Remus, and all Remus would have is him. So he kept his grip on the impulsive side even when it dragged him for miles across the Imagination and miles away from Virgil because sometimes it felt like Virgil was moving just as fast in the other direction.

There was not a single bone in his body that didn’t still care though. That didn’t feel every pulse of anxiety and every ache of fear and hurt when Virgil’s turmoil rampaged through the room. He still sat with him when he allowed it, he still _wanted_ to sit with him when he didn’t, and when Thomas decided a plane journey was reasonable for a video about being turned into a cartoon he made sure he was ready and waiting for Virgil’s return. He needn’t have bothered.

Janus was just leaving the kitchen when Virgil appeared back in the living room and stepped out to meet him as he stormed towards the hall.

“Virgil are you alright after Thomas’s…” He broke off as Virgil moved past him, stalking to his room and slamming his door shut behind him. “…flight. No, why would you stay, I was only talking. To myself. Wonderful. _Love_ that for us.” Remus appeared in his own doorway on cue, peering out into the hall.

“Is he back? I want to show him what I’m working on for Thomas, I think he’ll _hate_ it.”

“You could say that, yes, but I don’t think he’s in the mood for hosting.” Music blasted through Virgil’s locked door and Janus muffled it with a snap of his fingers and turned away towards his own room, slipping through the door before Remus could stop him.

He was angry, he was upset, and he didn’t know what to do, he confessed to the room and made his way over to his desk, sitting heavily as his chair reappeared. _Why did he keep going to them and coming home like this?_ Remus was outside of his room, he knew it like he knew the sky was blue, and he really didn’t mean for it to annoy him as much as it did. He didn’t leave his room that night and neither did Virgil but the next day, as Virgil’s door remained firmly shut, Janus dragged Remus out into the Imagination. It was just meant to be a walk, some exercise to blow off steam, but it was _Remus_ he was out with so it ended up taking most of the day which was fine because Virgil didn’t emerge.

Catching Virgil outside of his room over the next few weeks became something of a sport for Remus and the bane of Janus’s day. He always seemed to be leaving when Janus entered a room and he didn’t know if the fact that he and Remus were almost always together was making it worse. He’d stopped going to visit the others as well and somehow that didn’t feel like a good thing either.

It had been a month since Thomas’s last video and Virgil still hadn’t talked to him about it. He had barely talked to him about anything. It was like the early days all over again only if he had the option between carrying on like this and going back to the early days he’d be gone in an instant. The only thing that was actively keeping him from losing it other than his commitment to Thomas was Remus. The other side barely ever left him alone now and if Virgil’s withdrawal was affecting him this badly, how on earth was he going to cope if Virgil actually left?

Janus started matching Remus’s clinginess with a coddling need to keep him close and that was how they ended up once again sleeping on the couch. Remus was wedged in on his side with half of his limbs jammed down the back of the couch cushions to keep him from flailing around in his sleep while Janus slept with his back to him, facing out into the room in abandoned vigilance.

Virgil didn’t linger for very long before he left, shushing Steven when the little beast lifted up from his spot by Janus’s feet when it noticed him standing there.

The anxious side’s door closed with a gentle click and Janus’s body eased into the couch in a way it hadn’t in years, the tiniest bit of tension that was always holding it just shy of relaxed melting away even as a frown twitched at his eyebrows. _Something wasn’t right_ , and he slipped into his most peaceful dream in years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, I'm not abandoning this fic but I think I need to take a short break. This might not manifest itself in any noticable way since my upload schedule has been a bit patchy anyway but I wanted to say that just in case it seems like I've wandered off. I'm excited for the next chapter, I'm sorry for leaving it on a cliffhanger even if I end up not leaving for long, but I don't know if I can write that much angst right now. I'm going to try, but I've had a pretty bad line-up of bad news the last few weeks and I just don't want to write sad things right now. I'm going to try and focus on some shorter, happier things so I'll likely still be posting and as I said, I was really excited about the next chapter so I might not even be gone for long but yeah. I'd committed myself to getting this one out today and I'm happy I did but I need a little break. 
> 
> Thank you guys so much for reading, I really hope you enjoyed the chapter and I'm sure I'll be back soon. As always I'm over on tumblr under the same username so in the meantime feel free to come say hi. Til next time x


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Accepting Anxiety! But for the dark sides the gains came with its losses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Warnings!  
> Please be aware this is not a happy chapter. Blood is mentioned, minor and suggested physical injuries are included. There is potentially upsetting language included, with hurtful and potentially manipuative intentions behind them. I think I've mentioned corpses again. No spoilers for the newest episode.  
> Otherwise, enjoy!

There was an elbow in his face. Why was there-

“ _Ow!_ ”

Green flooded his vision and he had his answer.

“Remus!”

Arm hit arm, then stomach, then face-

“Remus, that’s my face! _Aargh!_ ”

Two bodies hit the ground. Heaped together at the foot of the couch, any pleasant memories that Janus had of his dreams that night were painfully yanked away as Remus once again started clobbering him as he pulled himself up from the floor. As the creative side stretched, Janus shuffled away and got to his own feet, scowling around the room because surely Virgil would be just _waiting_ … Janus tugged his clothes viciously back into place and redirected his glare to Remus.

“I _didn’t_ hate every moment of that. We should do it more often, really, what a _lovely_ way to wake up.” He snarked, stalking out of the sitting room with a snap of his fingers, the cushions that had followed them down to the ground from their tumble off the couch settling back into place. Why did he think Virgil would have graced them with his sunshiny face today? It would have broken the sullen side’s spectacular record over the last few weeks, he thought as he entered the kitchen, smashing the kettle on with more force than necessary and snapping again, irritated, to fill it as it whined pitifully with nothing to heat.

Remus didn’t join him and wasn’t that a first! He set about making something for breakfast. Eggs went into a pan, the shells discarded in a bowl in case Remus wanted them, and he snacked on the crusts of Remus’s bread as he fired the insides into the toaster. It was quiet – strange for him to be the only one making noise – but there was a calm about the place that was soothing over his irritation rather than instigating it. Nothing good had ever come from calm before, he doubted it was about to start now, but he could enjoy it while it lasted. And maybe some quiet time alone was what he needed.

His eggs turned out perfect, cooked properly for once without Virgil harassing him into turning the stove off early or Remus distracting him until they were burnt. He didn’t have to watch Remus eat his dry toast in one choking mouthful or factor in disinfecting the counters after Virgil clambered all over them. He could just sit and not worry about-

Lowering his hand and his toast from his mouth, Janus frowned, considering, into the middle distance. Calm never did last long. Why wasn’t he worried? He took a bite of his toast as he looked around, finding nothing out of place. That was odd but hardly a cause for concern. Mentally checking in with Thomas yielded no immediate concerns either. He was probably going to be late getting up as he’d silenced his alarm instead of snoozing but if he wanted to sleep then Janus wasn’t going to stop him; he had nothing pressing to do today anyway. Was he really just so used to things going poorly that something going well was this strange to him?

Still, suspicion was pooling around him and he sent his own influence out to wade through it. There were no lies or illusions that he could sense, nothing particularly self-destructive happening in Thomas’s mind or actions that he should be concerning himself with. Virgil would probably get uppity about him lying in at some point but as it stood right now everything was fine.

He finished his breakfast, more put-out now than satisfied. The dishes didn’t take long, there was no mess other than his own to contend with, and as he slipped his gloves back onto his dried hands he set out to find Remus while the creative side’s breakfast sat cold in the toaster.

If there was one thing consistent about this morning it was that Remus wasn’t hard to find; as it turned out he had never left the sitting room. What _was_ strange, however, was that he wasn’t… _doing_ anything. Janus approached curiously, rounding the other side who merely staring ahead of himself until he was standing in front of him, eyebrow raised and waiting for an explanation.

“It feels like a whitetip in the day in here.” Remus commented, eyes locking onto Janus’s in an uncomfortably scrutinising hold. Janus gave him a moment, just to see if he would elaborate, but as suddenly as Remus’s attention had latched onto him it was gone again, drifting around the room looking for something to engage with. It was an uncomfortable fit, the atmosphere in the sitting room was as off as the kitchen had been but there still didn’t seem to be anything _wrong_. _What was going on?_ The silence was stretching. Again: odd. But concerning? Not really. So probably, given his luck.

“Fascinating.” He answered and stepped away, turning down the hall to go to his own room to freshen up and change from his clothes from yesterday, more out of habit than anything else, but he paused. Just before opening his door he glanced down the hall to Virgil’s room and took just a moment to glare at the door. It was locked, he couldn’t remember the last time it had been opened, and the anxious side hiding so deep his own space that his influence couldn’t even be felt out in the hall anymore. Why was that thought niggling at him so much?

Annoyed now, he moved past his own door and instead went to Virgil’s, knocking hard and waited, confused, when the usual pulse of apprehension didn’t greet him. Remus appeared at his side, popping over from the living room and uncomfortably close to join him in his wait.

“You’re being weird!”

Even for Remus his voice was overly loud and Janus pushed him a step or two away, unsure if Remus was speaking to him or shouting through to Virgil but not expecting the sulking side to offer any input. His influence flared confusingly around him at the statement despite its indeterminate direction and Janus could only assume that meant Remus potentially could have been talking about either of them.

“Yes, of everyone here, I’m the one who is acting strangely.” He answered, not surprised when Virgil’s side of the door remained quiet but certainly surprised when he could find no lie in his words. Remus didn’t give him time to unpick that, having already stepped close again.

“You didn’t take a shower before breakfast.” That was true, of course but hardly suspicious.

“Well, yes but-”

“You always take a shower first and today you didn’t.”

“I don’t _always_ -”

“And you’re as mad as a cat pet backwards and pulled inside out but you’re not wondering why.”

Janus just scoffed at that accusation, offended and dismissive as he stepped around Remus, a pointless action as the duke hugged close to his side even as Janus opened the door to his room.

“Thomas is being weird too and you don’t care about that either.” Remus finished pointing out and Janus once again found himself standing paused in his doorway. His room was there, technically. He could see it, just not all at once and that was the clearest sign he could think of that something was seriously wrong with himself and Thomas. Sections of the room were appearing in the corners of his eyes, like the illusion of dots between the crossed lines of a check pattern, but they disappeared under his swiping gaze, eyes never landing on anything solid. He closed the door with a gentle click.

Something was in disrepair, there was a confusion that was upsetting the balance in his lies and that was probably a cause for concern.

No.

That _was_ a cause for concern. With that understood he turned his attention to Remus again who’s own curiosity and attention had latched back onto him now that his room was hidden.

“You’re right, something strange is happening.” Again, his function coiled around the truth in his words and if this was the day that Remus was right instead of him then who knew what would happen next. “I should be really concerned about that.” _True_. “And yet I’m not.” _Also true_.

Remus just blinked at him, left eye then the right, intrigued by the mystery but increasingly bored with the pace. If Janus wanted to keep him on hand for whatever came of this investigation then he’d need to come up with some way to keep him entertained.

He turned his attention back to Thomas and noted that he’d decided to roll out of bed but had rolled just as swiftly down onto the couch. The TV was on but he was on his phone, missing the episode and not caring. Janus was finally sensing a theme for the day. Beside him, Remus’s influence danced out and Thomas’s phone screen was swiftly filled with deep sea horrors and Remus looked about as surprised as Janus felt when he turned to face him. He watched the delight work its way into Remus’s eyes and the sick curiosity weaving through Thomas’s thoughts as he googled deeper and deeper, blessedly tempered by Logan as the other side more forcibly steered the sudden interest in the unknown into reasonably safe territory. Patton hadn’t reared his head yet, probably distracted by something if he wasn’t jumping on this, and Virgil wasn’t reacting at all.

 _Shit_.

Janus went back to Virgil’s door and knocked, annoyance surging through him and battling through an emotion he could only akin to grief in the absence of the fear he was sure should be there.

“Virgil! _Don’t_ open this door!” He demanded, battering the door again when his call yielded no answer. “ _Virgil!_ ”

Emptiness met him from the other side and the handle refused to budge beneath his desperate grasp. His knuckles cracked off the wood in a frustrated punch, the cushion of the gloves imperceptible as pain seeped through his bones and over his wrist until he could almost feel it to his elbow.

“Virgil _isn’t_ in trouble, he’s doing a _wonderful_ job as Anxiety right now.” Janus reported from the hall, clicking his fingers with a snap that pulled at his aching joints to get Remus’s attention back on him. He failed.

“Well he’s getting five stars from me!” Attention still fixed on Thomas, Remus looked powerful as he flexed his new control now that it was freed from under Virgil’s scrutiny. The sharper elements of his character were always impossible to ignore but dangerously easy to underestimate, wrapped as they usually were in the absurdity that fit loose around Remus like a mole-rat’s skin. Remus never slouched, he was always harsh lines and angles, but now it suddenly seemed like he had stood up straight for the first time and Janus was reminded, just briefly, of how terrified he had been of this side when he first appeared. He remembered why they called him the duke.

“He could use a holiday!” Remus continued, beautifully settled into his spot as Creativity, as Impulse and Banished Thoughts. “And I could use more time on Thomas’s phone. We should text Joan, get them over here. Now _that_ would be funny.”

The suggestion went out like a decree and Thomas listened.

Deceit was swift to follow, and Thomas listened to that too.

 _Oh shoot, wait, I forgot I had plans_. The text was sent but it had Morality’s attention. He had never needed Anxiety to enforce that lying was wrong. Deceit forced another while he still could. _I’m filming a video today_. His lie had the desired effect: the creativities’ interests were peaked and Roman retook control.

Janus turned to Remus’s side as Thomas jumped up to get his camera and the others scrambled to ready themselves for the video. The problem with Thomas was becoming apparent now that he knew what to look for. His lack of care was ridiculous, frankly it was embarrassing, and ire pierced through his fondness for Virgil as he watched the consequences of his inaction. At least the others were with Thomas now. He didn’t suspect any real affection for Virgil in the light sides, nothing to push them to seek him out without prompting, but they would do what was best for Thomas. He could trust in that.

“ _Please_ keep pouting, it’s _awfully_ becoming.” He commented as Remus blinked at him, a mangey pup with his new favourite toy stolen by a stronger dog. “We need them to fix this. If Virgil wont listen to us, maybe he’ll listen to them.”

“If you say so.” Remus sulked from his side.

Janus turned his attention back to Thomas, seeing the others appearing in his living room, and felt the warmth of Thomas’s acceptance of them even through his own resentment.

“You need to make Thomas say something, we need him and the others to draw Virgil out.” He explained to Remus, absently watching the frivolity unfolding before the camera.

“I don’t know, I’m kind of liking this new Thomas!” Remus crooned back, enjoying his little outbursts even more as even Roman engaged with them (no one could resist Mulan).

“This isn’t the time to play, this is about Virgil.” Janus snapped at him, irritation colouring his words and his cheeks as he glared at Remus, not that the other side cared.

“Isn’t everything about Virgil?”

The question, while sounding unfairly honest, was marked underneath with something Janus couldn’t quite place. It wasn’t bitterness, he didn’t think; Remus hardly seemed capable of it. It was almost too faint to be worth looking into but something snagged his interest nonetheless, he even wondered if this was something that he would normally be concerned about. They didn’t have time, not really, to look into it right now either way, but Janus felt for the first time since he’d known him that Remus might not only be asking something from him but somehow lying to him too.

“That’s not fair.” He answered, locking eyes with his friend and pleading for him to stay on track. It seemed important, a feeling far greater than the stresses of unease that Virgil could usually thread through the belief, that Thomas be put to rights. “Please Remus, we need to get this fixed.”

“Fine.” Remus conceded, sulking yet accepting. “But only because I miss the little emo too.”

“ _You mean I can’t make babies?_ ” Thomas spouted out beyond them, but if the others suspected Remus was behind it they didn’t let on.

“Thank you.”

“Whatever.”

It continued like that for longer than Janus would have liked, Remus supplying refreshingly PC quips while Janus did his best to keep his uncomfortable hold on Thomas’s secrets without Virgil backing him up. Their plan was ridiculous but at last they were addressing the issue: the others were going to “rescue” Virgil from whatever notion of time-out the side had put himself under. All he and Remus had to do now was wait and hope he came back to them.

“Tommy’s in there!” Remus squealed beside him and Janus nodded along having watched them all sink out just the same. Even if he hadn’t seen it he felt it immediately, the foreignness of being so close to Thomas, the unfamiliarity of strangers in his home. Yet still no Virgil. There was still no apprehension, no worry, no fear. Nothing to **suggest** -

Janus threw himself in Remus’s path – the primal need to act, defend, protect exploding from his mind and chest – and blocked his access to the door. It was still locked, anxious eyes in front and behind it checking again and again that _it was still locked_ as the light sides settled into their invaded spaces. Virgil had to know they were out there, as the lock bolted steadily, _blessedly_ , further into the wall and Janus took up guard before it. He stepped to the right as Remus hopped over, and to the left when Remus went to go around. A steady stance, arms outstretched and hands placating, as Remus leered over his shoulder at his quarry, safe behind just one piece of wood. And Janus.

Standing between Remus and something he wanted was never a good place to be but Janus had reasoned with him once today so maybe he would listen again.

“Remus, I _don’t_ need you to listen to me right now.” Though his double-meaning was obvious Remus took his words at their face value, his interest exponential and refusing to meet its peak even as Janus snapped his fingers to shift his gaze down onto the reptilian side’s face. Janus knew he wasn’t listening.

“ _Remus_.” He stressed, anxious sweat pebbling uncomfortably down his back and at the temple of the human side of his face. “You _can_ …‘t go in there. It’d ruin everything… we won’t be safe. _Thomas_ won’t be safe… _Please_.” He beseeched, and for a moment he thought he had his attention. For a moment Remus’s eyes, in all their madness, had focused on his. “Don’t make me stop you.” A second passed, then another, and Janus coiled tighter with every one until Remus’s eyes darted back to the door and they both _lunged_ at the other.

Remus was quick, he was dangerous and strong but Janus was ready and he’d had years of practice for this. As Remus shot forward, to crush him against the door or push him out of the way he didn’t know but Janus didn’t wait to find out as he used his own momentum against Remus’s to latch onto his arm. His left leg caught the front of Remus’s and this, as he swung his body around Remus’s side, was enough to pivot the creative half back the way he’d come and towards his own room instead. The hand sent out to steady himself against the wall fell through his gaping doorway instead and Remus landed heavily on his filthy floorboards and the light from the hallway cut off with a slam while he was still mid-air towards his escape again.

Janus stood between the two locked doors of his friends, pressed against one to quell the furious pounding shaking the wood with silence greeting him from other. Virgil’s door sealed tighter and, assuming it was because of the noise they were making, Janus silenced any sound coming out of Remus’s. Remus himself could still scream and rage on the other side of it but Janus knew that he had at least spiritually broken the promise he had made to the other side all those years ago. Remus was hidden, Virgil was with the others, Thomas was protected, and he was alone. Eager to leave the brackets of silence he and Virgil had created in the hallway, he crept towards the living room and sat on the edge of the coffee table so he could keep a fitful watch over the bedrooms.

Concern, now that it had returned to him, painted itself thickly through his veins, a dark ink poisoning his body and staining his insides black. His organs were shrivelling, his stomach, his gut, his lungs all pulling to flee the invading flood that was slowly consuming him. He felt sick with it. He didn’t know what Virgil would do next, and he didn’t know why he’d cut himself off in the first place. Remus might forgive him, he wasn’t one to hold grudges but before today Janus wasn’t one to break promises either. This was a new breach of trust between the three of them and he didn’t know what to do. Fingers pressed to his eyes as he tried to breathe through it; he had done this a million times before with Virgil, had done this a thousand times himself. It was never easy living with uncertainty.

He didn’t know how long the others had stayed for but he felt it when they sank out together, stealing a large portion of his nervous breath with them as they left. Virgil wouldn’t risk allowing Thomas to come back – it was a ridiculous and dangerous thing for anyone to have suggested – so he allowed his influence to drop away from Remus’s door, one of the secrets of the mindscape allowed to roam his cage again. But the opportunity was left to sink like dust in the space vacated by Janus’s hold on him. Remus stayed put. The mindscape stayed silent for hours. Remus refused to emerge and while Virgil’s door had remained locked to Janus he had felt each of the others visit and be admitted in turn.

There was only one thing he could try to fix right now but he didn’t know if he had the strength to do it. Remus’s silence over the last few hours was concerning him almost as much as Virgil’s weeks of isolation but with Remus he knew that _he_ was the one to blame. “It’s for the best” stopped being something he could easily apply when he started called his fellow sides friends but knowing it didn’t change his actions, and it certainly didn’t change the fact that he still believed he had been right to do it. He dragged his hands down his face, gentler on his human side than the snake side which could take a little more pressure without hurting. He had to apologise. He _hated_ apologising.

It took him a moment, a beat of hesitation, to stand up from the couch but once he was on his feet he kept moving until he was standing outside of Remus’s door. The silence continued, more worrying than any level of commotion he could think of as he lifted his fist to the door.

 _Knock, knock, knock_.

“Remus?”

The wood splintered out violently, an oblong circle of destruction; the morning star, he guessed past the lump of fear in his throat. The door held steady but the message was clear, dripping off the innards of the door like blood: Remus didn’t want to talk right now.

He debated what to do. He could hardly go in, he rather liked the shield that currently separated them, and yet another knock on the door would likely tear it down if the first response was anything to go by. Reluctantly he stepped back, giving the other side some space. Unfortunately, he was saved from indecision by Virgil. The door behind him creaked softly open and there he stood, his absent friend, in the doorway.

It had been weeks since Janus had gotten this good a look at the anxious side and he looked… great. Better than Janus had seen him in months. Smiling, even. The rage that the sight of him inspired in so little time burned harder than the worry, than the guilt and the pain that Janus had felt in his absence. _He was happy_. Standing in front of him now Virgil looked happy while Janus’s relationships fell apart.

“What the hell was that?” It snapped out of his mouth with all the venom he wished had come with his scales, whipping the smile from the other side’s face as confusion, guilt, annoyance warred for its place instead. “Do you have any idea how _selfish_ -”

“Look! I didn’t know that would happen. I didn’t do it to hurt Thomas, I was trying to-” Virgil went to defend. It was an age-old battle between them, finding the best way to keep Thomas safe, to keep Thomas happy. He hadn’t realised it before he started but Janus was in a completely different fight.

“This isn’t about Thomas!” How could Virgil be this blind? How could he stand there and not realise that this was the first time he’d spoken to Janus in weeks? “ _Where have you been_? What did you just try to pull? Did it even occur to you that we would worry? That we would be scared? That we would _miss you_? Or were you just worried about _them_?”

“I was worried about Thomas, like _you’re_ supposed to be.” Virgil accused, defensive as their voices grew louder. “I was hurting him! You knew that I was hurting him and you didn’t care so I did something about it!”

“I am not having this argument with you again.”

“Yes you are!” Virgil insisted as Janus made to move past him into the living room. Prowling after the older side, Virgil gripped his arm and swung him around when he ignored him. “And you’re going to _listen_ to me this time. I think I was hurting Thomas because I was working from back here. I needed to be closer- he needs to know me better to know when to listen to me or not. We can’t just rely on you to-”

“Who’s ‘we,’ Virgil?” Janus cut in. Lips pressed tight together he stared to other side down, eyes locked onto Virgil’s darkening face as he dodged his gaze. The anxious side didn’t answer right away but Janus wasn’t letting him off without it. He quirked an eyebrow, mocking, and asked again. “Well? Who is it? I’m _desperately_ curious: who is this mysterious ‘we?’ You and Thomas? Morality maybe? You both seem pretty close. Or is it Roman who made you cry every other meeting?”

“Stop it.”

“Or Logan who needed _quite a bit_ of prompting to come get you today.”

“Stop it!”

“Couldn’t be me and Remus anymore, you wouldn’t even let us in. You’ve kept that door locked for months so I doubt you count us as part of your little _team_! So who is it?”

“ **Shut up!** ”

“It’s us or them, Virgil! It’s always been us or them!”

“ **Only because you said so!** ” Virgil took a step back and gripped his hoodie around himself, taking a shaky breath. The makeup crept back up his face as he calmed just enough to steady his voice. “I can’t talk to you right now, you’re not listening to me.” He stepped away, turning back towards the hallway but there was no way that Janus was letting this end there. He wasn’t giving Virgil the chance to turn this into another months long brooding session or the satisfaction of getting the last word. He was close on the other’s heals as he tried to retreat back to his room.

“No, I think you should. I _don’t_ think there’s something you want to say to me right now.” Janus goaded, keeping his attention away from Remus’s splintered door as Virgil opened his own.

“There isn’t.”

“ _Liar_.”

His control of the mindscape flexed within his fingers for the second time as he pulled at the air and slammed Virgil’s door shut in his face. He stepped back while the other side pushed uselessly against it for a moment before spinning around with a glare.

“Open my door. Now.”

“Open it yourself, after you tell me what you were going to say. You _weren’t_ planning on hiding in there again, right? Aren’t we _friends_ , Virgil? Don’t we tell each other things?” His back collided with the wall and while Virgil still stood near his own door, the pressure of his hands against Janus’s chest was still lifting from his skin. “ _Real_ mature.”

“Why are you doing this? You’re going out of your way to be a dick! What do you want me to say, J?” Janus just glared back at him and pushed himself off the wall so Virgil continued. Beside them, Remus’s door creeped open but they both ignored the side standing as silent witness. “Do you want me to say we aren’t friends? That I’m abandoning you, or haven’t missed you, or that being there feels better than being here?” He demanded, biting the inside of his cheek as the last of any affection that Janus had in his eyes cooled.

“Just that last bit.” Janus asked, expression carefully blank as he tucked his hands into the crooks of his elbows, the scent of a truth flickering in the air between them. “Say that last bit again.”

“I like the others.” Virgil admitted instead, managing to meet Janus’s eye. “And I don’t want to have to choose between them. I’m tired of coming back to you judging me whenever I meet them. You never have anything good to say about them even though you’re always so quick to tell me that they used to be your friends. I’m tired of you _keeping_ me here-”

“ _Keeping_ you?!”

“-and getting like this whenever I _do_ choose to go! I get why _Remus_ should be-” Virgil stopped himself as Janus’s expression grew murderous, cutting away to glance at Remus who waved innocently back, seemingly not bothered by the insinuation. “You don’t get to decide what’s best for me. You’ve made enough mistakes and I don’t want to be another one.”

Janus’s throat burned as his anger fought against the words that Virgil seemed to have pulled from his own mind and thrown back at him like acid. “Everything I do is to keep us safe.” He forced out.

“Everything you do is for yourself.” Virgil shot back. “To keep you happy. To keep us here. Maybe you were right to before, I used to pull the place apart. But it’s been a long time since that’s been a problem and all that’s changed is I started _talking_ to them. They _accepted me_. I… I told them my name.” Something came loose in Janus’s chest at the confession but he didn’t speak. He knew what that meant to Virgil, he knew why he was telling him. He’d never forgotten that he didn’t tell Virgil his name right away and neither, it seemed, had Virgil.

“So no. When I said team I didn’t mean you. We’ve never _been_ a team, Janus. If we were you would have told me I didn’t have to come back. You would have told me that it’s possible to cross that stupid bridge! The others were here today! _Thomas_ was here today.”

“They were here because I thought you were hurt.” He pushed. “They were here because _we_ made them come.”

“I don’t think I believe you.” Briefly, Janus thought he’d gotten his wish. That he was back at the start of it all with Virgil, scared and confused with no one to lean on but each other. Remus shifted beside them, an antsy two-step from standing still for so long but it brought Janus back to the present he wanted to have never predicted. He still had Remus. _He still had Remus_. But he was losing Virgil.

“And even if I did it doesn’t make this better.” The anxious side continued. “If you knew they could come here, that we could go there, why do you keep insisting that we can’t-”

“They don’t _want_ us there!”

“They don’t want _you_ there! And you don’t want _them_ , but I do!”

“So what, Virgil?!” Janus asked, throwing his hands up and raking his fingers quickly through his hair. “What do you want? What else have I been keeping from you that you want so _desperately_ all of a sudden?”

“ **I want to go.** ” The words dropped like lead between them and Janus’s gaze fell after them, staring at the floor as silence replaced the shouting.

He breathed out sharply through his nose. It took a moment but when he lifted his head Virgil was still looking at him, was still waiting for a response, and bitterness twisted across his features as he allowed to words to fully resonate inside of him.

“Then go.” He spat, watching Virgil’s eyes widen in surprise, hiding his own hurt almost as well as Janus. “If you don’t want to be here then fine, but don’t blame it on me. Or did you expect me to make you stay since I’m so good at it?” Cruelty flooded his words and he made sure that Virgil was caught in the wake of them. “I’ve kept you here for _so long now_ , haven’t I? It’s such a _shame_ that my little act has been cut short!”

“Stop lying to me.” Virgil croaked, pain squeezing at his throat but Janus was far from sympathetic.

“Oh, I’m a _liar_ again, is that it? This was _your_ accusation, Virgil. Another little anxiety twisted around us, but I’ve had quite my fill of just the one.” Virgil surged across the room and lifted Janus from the ground with two fists clenched tight in the front of the side’s yellow shirt. Janus thrashed for a moment in his grip as Virgil all but growled in his face but Janus wasn’t finished. “I’m done playing catch-up in your delusions with the others!” He hissed through his teeth. “If you want to leave then _go_. You may as well at this point: _neither of us want you here_.”

Virgil was gone from him but his grip had been tight enough that Janus stumbled a few steps after him before he could right himself. The other side was doing the same, staggering to keep his feet under him as they both stared up at Remus standing between them. Their youngest side still didn’t speak though the blood coating the teeth of his grin suggested it wasn’t a lack of words that was stopping him. Neither of the older sides could spare the sight much thought as their attentions locked back together, magnets built from years of familiarity now charged with resentment and spite and incapable of resisting the pull of the other.

Each pulled their clothes back into place, Virgil yanking his jacket straight again from the awkward pulls of being thrown across the room, and Janus smoothed out the bunches in his shirt left from Virgil’s fists.

“I should never have listened to you.” Virgil whispered, harsh and louder than he wanted as Janus glared at him from across the room. “From the very start I shouldn’t have listened and ended up stuck here when I could have had so much more. You told me at every step of the way that you knew what was best and I listened to you like an _idiot_. I could have been accepted all this time, _we_ could have-”

“You listened because you _are_ an idiot.” Janus bit back, hoping that Remus’s weren’t the only teeth that would draw blood today. “Don’t pretend now that you care about what would have happened to me or to us. You only care about yourself.” The taste of untruth was slick and bitter on his tongue but he didn’t let it change the set of his face or the conviction of his words. Across from him, Virgil pressed his lips together.

“That’s a lie too. And you know it.” He accused, he knew all of Janus’s tells, or almost all of them anyway. Silence stretched between them as Janus sat on his defence for himself and Virgil used it to steel his resolve.

“I’m leaving.”

Sharper than any blade could hope to be though just as painful, Virgil’s words were met with cold indifference. One pair of narrowed eyes, one pair of panicked: he took them both in as his vision blotted with angry tears. In their hallway, paint scraped at the outlines of his door as the wooden frame was reclaimed by the wall. Hesitating, Virgil shifted his weight onto one foot though the other refused to leave the ground for a few long seconds until finally he’d taken a step towards the door he’d only dared to open once.

The lock clicked seamlessly out of place, not a day’s worth of neglect slowing the action despite the years of disuse. Before him lay both the bridge and the others, the light sides’ door opening just as quickly as theirs had in response to the supposed invitation. Behind him…

“Virgil?”

There was humour in that voice, a joking “what are you doing?” implied so heavily that Virgil couldn’t help but second guess himself, just for a moment. But it hadn’t come from the right person. Turning in front of the door, Virgil looked back at Remus as the younger side stared after him. Behind him, Janus stood silent and hostile but Remus looked the least dangerous Virgil had ever seen him. The madness in his eyes never changed but the tension scratched around them belied the humour in his tone. He knew this wasn’t a joke, he knew this wasn’t a bad scene, but he didn’t know how to say goodbye. He’d never had to before, but Virgil had been preparing his for a while.

“Bye, Remus.” He said, regret colouring his tone but he didn’t hesitate in the doorway anymore. He pulled the door open wider and stepped through it. He didn’t look back.

Janus stalked across the room and slammed it after him, not caring if he was all the way through it or not, not caring if it clipped him or caught him or if for some reason he would try to step back inside. The door latched shut and fit tighter than it ever had before into the frame around it. Light and sounds had never seeped through its edges before but now it looked like air itself would struggle to make its way in or out of the room. The lock slipping back into place was just a lightweight formality as the message being sent had woven its way into the very fabric of their mindscape: this door would not be opened again.

For all the conviction of his words and actions until this moment, now that the door was closed and his best friend wasn’t on his side of it, Janus felt every ounce of the poison he had been spitting into the room seep back into him. One of his hands sought out the handle of the door but he pushed against it rather than pulled, an extra weight to keep the door shut, to keep himself in, as he crashed his other fist against the wood. Again, again, and again until his fingers were bruising and his knuckles split inside his gloves, he attacked the door and screamed.

He left. Virgil left. _He’d actually left_. Rage was flooding up from the bottom of his lungs and it scorched his throat as he screamed it at the door. Why hadn’t he thought he would go? Somewhere, somehow, he hadn’t believed it even as he had practically kicked Virgil through the door. He couldn’t think of anything else, every thought in his mind kept swirling in and around the fact that Virgil was gone, _he was gone_. And he wanted to hate him even more for only partially being the one at fault.

His air cut off as Remus’s vice-like arms crushed around him and Janus was forced to remember that they had been fighting before all of this as well. His arms were trapped to his sides, his rage squeezed out of him as he was once again lifted from the ground like a fish in a practice pond. Remus spun them from the door and Janus clawed as best he could at his hands and forearms as he struggled to escape the assault but he knew that Remus was stronger than him. He kicked his legs and threw his weight where Remus’s arms would let him as he waited for his next move but it didn’t come. By the time Janus’s feet replanted on the ground they weren’t strong enough to keep him standing and he bowed over Remus’s arms and cried.

He didn’t bother unclenching his hands, knowing that Remus wouldn’t care about the pull of nails in his skin. Instead he clung tighter and let his legs give way as Remus lowered them to the ground and continued hugging him from behind, making no comment on Janus’s tears as Janus made no comment on Remus’s silence. The embrace hurt, he would have bruises for days if not weeks but Janus clawed Remus’s arms tighter around him because that was all he could do.

After long moments, when Janus’s sobs had quietened in his mind enough for him to be able to hear those leaving his mouth he realised that Remus had started talking to him at some point. The words didn’t make sense at first but he endeavoured to listen as soon the racket he was making started to die down and the pain in his arms, the slimy wetness covering his face, the blood on his hands, and the pain in his head came back to him. He dragged his legs closer to him and Remus clamped his own around those too.

“-then we’ll die in here and the bugs will come out through the floor and the window and doors and they’ll feast on our eyes. They’ll tunnel into our brains and they’ll eat and lay eggs and they’ll die too. Then the eggs will hatch!” Remus was telling him, and Janus writhed to dry his eyes on his own shoulders and his nose and mouth over Remus’s arms. Once he’d cleaned what he could he slumped in Remus’s hold.

“ _What’ll happen then?_ ” He asked, quiet and empty feeling as Remus continued venting out his story of their forgotten corpses as he held him on the floor.

 _He still had Remus_. The thought returned to him, distant and quiet and among the few things he had left from before that door shut. _He still had Remus_. And Remus had him.

\-------

Outside on the bridge Virgil flinched as the door shoved him forward a step, slamming against his hunched back as the blow struck his skin and his nerves. Across from him Patton stared, worrying, and as Virgil took his first real step across the bridge Patton ran, hurrying towards him until he met him more than three quarters of the way across. He didn’t ask what had happened but he pulled Virgil into a brief hug before stepping back again, hands fluttering as he tried to figure out which way he was meant to be ushering the other side.

Virgil made the decision for him as he stepped past, rounding the fatherly side as he slunk over the bridge towards the light sides’ door and to Roman who was standing in its frame. Thankfully, he didn’t have to stop and he didn’t have to speak because Roman stepped aside to let him in with a tentative smile which Virgil forced himself to return. It was shaky and had slipped from his face before his foot met the carpet on the inside of the mindscape. Stepping through was disorientating and his mind lurched to reassess his surroundings like he had bumped into his reflection in a mirror maze. Everything was the same and so different at once. The walls, the patterns and furniture were all there, just like he knew them, but every other thing was wrong. A painting had replaced Janus’s hat in his peripheral, nice enough but with a splintered chip in its frame like it had fallen from the wall before. The carpet was more worn, familiar paths treaded into them, and there wasn’t a window with a hole underneath to have tracked enough adventures or damage across the sitting room to warrant how many times the dark sides had had to replace their own.

The couch should have been safer, the room didn’t allow for that piece to move far, but while it resembled the dark sides’, his own little nest was missing. His blankets, formerly strewn perfectly over his corner were being neatly folded by Logan from Janus’s seat in the middle.

 _Only it wasn’t Janus’s seat_ , he reminded himself as he took it all in, and a fierce protectiveness moved him across the room to pull his blankets out from Logan’s attentive but unsentimental hands. He was being rude, he knew it, and he so desperately needed to stay here now that he’d thoroughly severed his ties to his-

…to the others.

“Thanks.” He pushed past his lips, hugging his blankets to his chest and dropping his gaze, and then his heart, as it landed on the electric candle sitting on the cluttered coffee table. They could never really keep things on their own coffee table, it wasn’t worth it since he and Remus broke it so often. The candle used to be the only thing there.

“Of course, it’s not a problem.” Logan was saying. “I didn’t think you’d appreciate arriving to a mess.”

“It’s a pretty thing! The little candle.” Patton complimented. “We noticed it before I even realised I was surrounded by blankets. They were so cosy, no wonder you kept them like that!”

“The door appeared when we got back but it didn’t have a handle or anything, it barely looked real.” Roman explained, standing near him and trying to sound enthusiastic despite the concern seeping clearly through his smile. “But once the handle showed up we didn’t need to go in to know it was yours: your mopey-dopey energy was all but pouring out of it, Gerard Gay.”

The other sides’ words were warm and so welcoming that Virgil wanted to cry. Heat didn’t help with the kinds of wounds he carried, nor the ones he’d inflicted, but it helped to sooth his mind a little and it made his next steps forward a little clearer. He plucked the candle from the table, every movement apologetic but sure, and hid it in the mass of fabric in his arms as he glanced up the corridor looking for his door.

“I’ll show you where it is.” Patton offered with a kind smile that Virgil felt was just a tiny bit easier to answer with an honest one of his own.

“Thanks.” He whispered again and ducked away from the others, following the father figure down the hallway he knew so well. They walked past where his door had been before – “Logan’s room, there,” Patton had told him, “And Roman’s here,” in place of Remus’s – to a new but familiar door further down the hall than theirs had gone in the dark mindscape.

“This is you here!” Patton chirped though it couldn’t have been more obvious as Virgil’s tumultuous emotions danced through his room into the hallway. They both stood uneasy before it but Virgil reached out anyway and undid the lock, calming in a backwards, unusual way when met with his familiar darkness which receded as he took it in. He was about to step through when Patton snagged his arm.

“Hey?” Voice quiet and smile soft, Patton made sure the others couldn’t hear so there would be no pressure on Virgil’s answer. “Do you want to watch a film with us later? Roman talks through the whole thing so no one will mind if you want to be quiet or rant or even leave.”

The offering finally won out against the barricade holding Virgil’s tears back and he ducked his head to hide them before anyone other than Patton could see. Patton’s hands started fluttering again, not sure if Virgil would accept a hug or a pat and less sure what had set him off but before he could decide on anything Virgil had swiped his makeup far across his face and nodded swiftly. Turning towards his room and stepping through, he made sure Patton couldn’t see him but hoped he could hear his smile through the pain in his voice.

“Yeah… That would be nice.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I live! Ooft. I hope you enjoyed this, it has pulled me through a pretty rough patch and I'm so happy and excited that it's finally done. I want to say now, there'll be a few more chapters of this story! But with this we are beginning to wrap up.
> 
> I've got some one shot things planned, so the series will still be added to but this particular stroy will eventually be coming to an end. Next chapter will be much lighter! 
> 
> Thank you guys so much for reading, I hope I've done the wait justice! As always I'm over on tumblr under the same username if you want to say hi! I love to hear what you guys think. See you next time! xxx


End file.
